Here’s, like, Reason 234,112 why I admire Famous Author Rob Byrnes. (NO, not his trivia contests. Scroll down on that link!)
There are many reasons to read fiction and a place on the shelf for all the different kinds of fiction that are written. Please never think that because a novel isn’t riddled with anguish and doesn’t end miserably that its author didn’t put as much love and thought into writing it as any Man Booker Prize winner does his or her novels.
I could say a million things on this subject. I’ll spare you.
But I’ll bet if reviewers could read Rob’s e-mail from readers they’d find out the same thing we discovered from our readers. There’s a large population of gay men (and some straight women, and the occasional lesbian and straight man) who can find a novel meaningful and a character engaging even when a book is so-called Gay Lite.
If there’s a best review, it’s one that lets us know if we did a good job with the kind of story we were writing. If there’s a worst review, it’s one for takes us to task for not writing something else.
As Timothy has been known to say in such cases, “Write your own damn book.”
Heck, I think ya’ll are great! And I do agree with Timothy. But I say if differently “If you don’t like it, paint your own damn painting”
In other news I started Three Fortunes in One Cookie today. I love the Alabama bit “thank God for Mississippi” Only someone who LIVED in Alabama would have put that in there. hehehehee
I think that books of this nature are often marginalized precisely because their target audience is marginalized … within the larger subset of an historically (and, yes, currently) disenfranchised population. The same can be said of the so-called “Chick Lit” genre, I think.
I have an M.A. in Liberal Studies (with an emphasis in Literature), and am really surprised that there hasn’t been a lot of scholarship devoted to writing of this variety — particularly a sort of sociological wash analyzing why elements of “Gay Lite” and “Chick Lit” appeal to dedicated readers of such novels.
Too bad I finished my thesis three years ago!
I think Amanda hits it on the head. The ‘gay lite’/’chick lit’ genres are sneered at by a cultural elite. And I would LOVE to read the work of the person willing to devote scholarship to a study of the writers, critics, and readers.
I have my own take: with a handful of exceptions, the critically-attacked ‘gay lite/chick lit’ novel isn’t all that dissimilar to The Big Important Novel. I mean, I loved Bright Lights, Big City enough to read it 9,284 times, but — in the end — isn’t it just ‘frat boy lit’?
Oh lord, I feel another diatribe coming on. But I’ll hold myself back.
Well… tonight.
–Famous Author Rob Byrnes
I did everything BUT my thesis for my Masters in English. Too bad that was so many years ago that I’d have to start from scratch now.
There are times I dream of teaching genre fiction–especially the last forty years of gay fiction, whether lite or lit–to mainstream students. Maybe that’ll be ANOTHER career for me when I’m old. Er, older. Whatever. 😉
Go for it, Becky!! I’d eventually like to teach a class like that, as well. I’m even considering getting a second MA in Sociology in order to teach G/L studies(particularly lit and history) someday. I incorporate g/l authors whenever possible into the lit class, as well as my writing classes. In my research writing class, I have assigned portions of Greg’s Katrina related blog entries when we discuss blogs as valuable historical documents compared to old school handwritten journals. The students overwhelmingly agree that his stuff has historical value, mainly for it’s honesty and genuineness. They are amazed at his openenss about his experience.
My minor is in sociology. The reason I chose it at the time was because my very first class in it was taught by a brilliant professor, and I wanted to take more of his classes. But in the
decadesyears since college, I’ve come to understand that it was exactly the right subject for the kind of person I am. Funny how stuff like that happens.Timothy is also known to wonder aloud what the hell Will & Grace has to do with literature. I’d like to know how many “chick lit” novels get compared to Dharma & Greg.
I knew that was going to get your goat. If you need another goat, that chick on the next block has one. Goats, by the way, do not bark all night.
“I hate everybody!” – Marcia Brady.
“Oy.”–Moishe Rex.
Our resident G/L scholar, who teaches the one G/L lit class and I were discussing some of the classics he teaches, such as The Front Runner and Rubyfruit Jungle(both of which I LOVED) and when i asked him about comtemporary gay lit, he snurled up his nose and said”I don’t read contemporay authors.” I looked him straight in the eye and said,”You’re missing some damn good shit then.” I also pointed out that these two were at one time “comtemporary” gay lit. Of course, I get frowned upon by some colleagues for admitting I LOVE me some Jackie Collins, too. I say fuck ’em if they don’t like what you write. We, your readers, love it and that’s what counts!! You’re books are fun and the worlds needs more fun!! You create work that contains characters I love and stories I enjoy… that’s all I want from a book. If I get more out of it, which I have often done, even with “gay lite” lit, yay for me. if I have simply spent a pleasaant afternoon with a good book, I’m satisfied. Bottom Line: there is just as much “literary” fiction out there that sucks just as bad as some “gay lite.”
You know, I would classify The Front Runner and Rubyfruit Jungle as contemporary, not classic. In my head, a classic is something pre-twentieth century. After 1900, it’s modern. And anything post-Vietnam would be contemporary. I realize that gay fiction as gay fiction doesn’t span the centuries, but still… Patricia Nell Warren and Rita Mae Brown are still alive and writing. That makes them contemporary.
Time makes a classic. When I say time, I mean at least a hundred years. We have very little idea what future generations will perceive is “literature” and worth teaching to college students. It could very well be chick lit.
I think he clasifies them as classics relatively, considering g/l lit doesn’t have the canon that mainstream lit does. But, I agree whole-heartedly.
I wonder if reviewers shouldn’t have to preface each review with, These were my expectations, going in…. Then, at least for me, I think I’d have a better understanding of what problems they had with the book, and why.
When I was a kid I’d heard Becky Sharp compared to Scarlett O’Hara, so right after reading Gone With The Wind, I went and checked out Vanity Fair. I was going in with the expectation that the book was going to be an exact-repeat of what I’d just read. Which was vanity unfair of me. Maybe some reviewers just want to read the book they liked, over and over in different forms, and anything else won’t do, in their eyes. I don’t know. : )
And didn’t FARB say it well.
There’s always enough angst in the world that I love to take a break and find an enjoyable book that will entertain me/make me laugh…Hey! Like your books!…I don’t see why people feel they should have to look down on that. I’ve said it before, and will bore you by saying it again: if I want to read angst, I’ll read people’s charts at work.
I mean, I loved Bright Lights, Big City enough to read it 9,284 times, but — in the end — isn’t it just ‘frat boy lit’?
Haha! Brilliant assessment!