Archive for: September, 2009

Joint Review: Cry Wolf, by Patricia Briggs

Sep 30 2009 Published by under Duelling/Joint Reviews

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Tumperkin’s Take:

Alpha & Omega/ Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs

Although Alpha & Omega and Cry Wolf are separate works, I’m going to review them together.  A&O, a novella, introduces the reader to Charles and Anna, the eponymous Alpha and Omega respectively.  CW picks up where A&O left off and takes us to a point where Charles and Anna commit to one another as mates.

My reading experience of these two books was somewhat unsettled by the fact that I read CW first, then A&O (my fault) which was rather like starting at chapter 4, reading to the end then going back and reading chapters 1 to 3.  The reason for this was that I decided to read this book after reading Janine’s comments regarding this series on Dear Author.  However, I didn’t pick up one bit of crucial information which was that the first bit of the story was in a separate novella.

Although I don’t read a lot of paranormal romance, a number of werewolf books have found their way into my hands over the years and as it happens, I find the werewolf the most appealing of the kitchen-or-garden-variety-paranormal-creatures out there.  I like the conceit of there being a pack and rules of behaviour that the characters have to negotiate their way round.  I like the animalistic stuff, both the horror aspect and the liberation-of-nature aspect.  One aspect I’m less keen on (though this is by no means limited to werewolves) is the fated mates trope.  The lack of free will can (doesn’t always, but can) detract from the romance for me.

I can also get impatient with external/non-romance plots. Undoubtedly that is because I am first and foremost a romance reader.  So whilst some readers may primarily appreciate the urban fantasy aspects of a book like this and find the romance of subsidiary appeal, for me, the non-romance aspects are essentially setting, against which I want to see the romance play out.

The story: Charles is the son of The Marrock, the leader of all werewolves a.k.a. Bran.  Charles is Bran’s enforcer, a strong alpha werewolf who essentially deputises for his father.  In A&O, Charles is sent to Chicago to investigate irregularities in Anna’s pack, following a call Anna made to Bran in defiance of her own Alpha, Leo.  Charles discovers that not only was Anna changed against her will, in defiance of werewolf laws, but that she has been brutally abused by her pack – and she is not the only one.

Anna believes herself to be a submissive wolf, ‘the lowest of the low’ as she describes herself.  But in fact Charles recognises her as an Omega, a wolf that is outside the normal pack structure and hence does not feel compelled either to fight or obey dominant wolves.   Instead, her presence has a calming effect on the whole pack.  Anna’s ignorance about her true nature and her brutalisation at the hands of her pack have, however, convinced her that she is submissive and she acts towards Charles accordingly. Charles recognises that Anna is his mate and tells her, letting her know that he wants to court her.

A&O is a pretty short novella, and the story moves along swiftly towards a final showdown with Anna’s pack during which Charles is wounded with slow-to-heal silver bullets.  At the end of A&O, 36 hours after their first meeting, Anna agrees to go back to Montana with Charles.  CW picks up the story at that immediate point.  Coming into the story at this point as a new reader, I was immediately frustrated.  I was unaware of the existence of the A&O novella but quickly realised that a crucial part of Charles and Anna’s story was missing.  At first I wondered if this was going to be told in flashback until I finally visited Janine’s post again and discovered A&O.  By that time, however, I was well into CW and ended up finishing it before A&O arrived.

The first few chapters of CW referred back to the events of A&O a fair amount so I was aware of the salient facts, but not the emotional journey the characters had been on.  This resulted in a fair bit of ‘had’-toned exposition at the outset that gave the story a static feel for me initially.  However, about a quarter of the way in, this stopped, and the story got going properly.  On the one hand, this meant that I could understand where the characters were coming from despite not having read A&O; on the other hand it struck me as unsatisfactory even if I had read A&O first.  To me, A&O and CW read like one book that had been artificially separated.

At the start of CW, Anna and Charles head back to Montana.  We see their first hours together as a couple and get a sense of two people who are strongly drawn to one another but whose natures and experiences make it difficult for them to overcome their barriers.  Anna has been abused and believes she hates sex.  Charles has cultivated a serious, silent persona and doesn’t get close to anyone because he knows he may one day have to take action against them.  He is used to going it alone and shutting others out.

Very soon after their arrival, Bran sends Charles on another mission, into the mountains of Montana in winter after what Bran thinks is a rogue werewolf killing hikers.  When Anna insists on accompanying the still-wounded Charles, Bran encourages her.  The rest of the novel is taken up with Charles and Anna’s investigation into the murders and what they find in the mountains.  In the midst of that, they become closer and the barriers begin to come down between them.  The novel closes with them marrying, albeit their relationship is still in its early days (and I gather, also the subject of the next book).

The external plots of both A&O and CW are decent enough.  However, as I said, I tend to concentrate on the romance arc.  This is one of the reasons I’m reviewing A&O and CW together – whilst there are two distinct external plots, there is a single romance arc.

I liked Charles a great deal.  He is strong and dominant without being overbearing.  He is kind too but because his kindness is hidden behind an cold mask, it is easily missed.  There are frequent references to his being impassive and difficult to read and we see other characters reacting to him quite negatively at times.  But Anna seems to understand him very well and not in a way that came across as facile.

Anna is a very raw character.  She’s been badly treated and she needs just what Charles is offering.  I quite liked the fact that whilst Anna’s natural character is clearly not submissive and subdued, she has been beaten down by her experiences.  One of my pet peeves is characters who don’t seem to be affected by bad experiences, as though it’s somehow weak to react in a natural manner to such things.  Briggs lets us see Anna (very gradually) build up her confidence and I had a smile on my face at the end of CW when she and Charles are playing together as wolves in the snow.

Which brings me to the fated mates thing.  This is never going to be a favourite trope for me.  Having said that, it worked fairly well for me in this book.  Charles and Anna did feel right for each other.  He was like a harbour for her, strong against the big bad world; and she was like the one person capable of really understanding him, partly because of her omega nature which didn’t react in the usual way to such a dominant wolf.  What I missed though – and what I look for in my romance reading – is that sense you get from the characters about why they have fallen for this particular person.  And that wasn’t something I got a strong sense of A&O/CW.  There are brief physical descriptions of the characters in A&O (though, frustratingly, not so much in CW) – Anna has ‘whisky-coloured’ curls and is ‘pretty’; Charles has long black hair and native-American features – but there is no sense of them taking delight in each other’s person, and I missed that.  I suppose the answer to that might be that it’s not necessary because Charles and Anna’s love goes deeper than the merely physical, but given that the mate bond seems to arise without consideration of physical or spiritual issues, that’s not an answer that fully satisfies me.

Briggs’ prose I found rather somewhat understated.  As I was reading, I was slightly disappointed by that.  However, later, when I reflected on it more, I came to think two things.  The first was that the dominant character in CW is Charles, and the flattish prose seemed to suit his silent, monosyllabic character.  The second thing was that I wonder if Briggs is one of those writers for whom the prose is a pure vehicle for the story.  I’ve found a few other authors’ prose to be like this – straight and almost journalistic in its effectiveness.  It can be slightly underwhelming as you read but then you realise that it’s delivering the story effectively.

All in all, I didn’t love this book but I did like it.  It’s a competent, enjoyable read that strangely grew on me more with hindsight.  And I liked the characters.  In the end though, I craved more romance and that’s more a question of reader preference than a criticism of the book itself.

Jessica’s Rejoinder:

I agree with pretty much all that Tumperkin says. Ironically, I downloaded the novella without realizing it was not the novel we had agreed to read. So quite by accident, I read them in the proper order! I did enjoy them, but I think my personal tastes run to other kinds of stories.  I’ll add a few observations:

1. It is a matter of personal taste that I tend not to like werewolf romances, or actually any romances which utilize the “two natured” trope, be it demons, shapeshifters, or groundhogs. It’s just very hard to do this well. In this book, much like the daemons in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, or Rhage, the dragon-vamp in J.R. Ward’s Lover Eternal, the wolf is really “other”, and not just an aspect of the human self. The characters refer to their wolves in the third person, or possessive, and seem to have trouble not only controlling their wolves, but sussing out what their wolves are “thinking” and feeling. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out things, like, why is the wolf mind still present when the wolf body is gone? And why does Anna think like human Anna when she is in wolf form (shouldn’t those pages be a series of grunts and barks?). Nevertheless, the dual identity creates a very concrete metaphysically real kind of internal conflict with the…

2. Mating concept, because two wolves can recognize each other as mates without their human counterparts agreeing. Like Tumperkin said, we all hate it when “mating” takes the place of “relationship”, and that did not happen here. I think its function in the paranormal universe is similiar to functions in many other romance genres: it keeps the couple together long enough to become a couple. In that sense, it is like an arranged marriage, or a wounded h/h who has to stay at the h/h’s house, or, in contemps, any arrangement that has them pushed together for a long period. The mating concept also allows authors to explain and explore intense sexual attraction between the h/h’s at a very early point in the relationship.

3. Charles was grievously injured by silver bullets in the novella and continued to be in a weakened state throughout the novel. I discovered that I find a wounded hero deeply unsettling and stress inducing. It really works for me to ramp up the suspense.

4. From a feminist point of view, Anna’s status as Omega is almost like an androgynous ideal. In the heydey of 1970s feminism, some folks thought we should do away with the two genders and adopt what came to be called mono-androgyny, one type of gender that blended the best of both. All of this has gone by the boards, historically, but I liked it that Anna was strong in a uniquely feminine way. I also liked it that Charles was not the Alpha. It is unusual to have a hero who is not the top dog.

5. I agree totally about the writing, which felt sort of “flat” or monotone to me, and reminds me of Anne Stuart and, in a way, some books by Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb. I love T’s observation about how it might function for a certain kind of writer.

6. The Native American aspect of Charles’ identity puzzled me: he got it from his mother, who was also a werewolf and a witch. So… what, if any, is the relationship between being a werewolf and being Native American? Or, for that matter being a witch?

7. I will say, that on paper it looks like so many of the things we love to hate or hate to love about paranormals are here — mating, possessiveness, the heroine rising like a phoenix from the ashes of sexual abuse, etc. — but they felt very fresh to me as Briggs wrote them. That was a major achievement, I thought.

17 responses so far

Book Discussion: You’re Invited

Sep 30 2009 Published by under Uncategorized

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You’re Invited!

What: Book discussion

When: Sunday October 25 from 7:00pm EST until …??? (at least Tuesday, I’m guessing)

Topic: Anne Stuart’s 2005 romantic suspense Black Ice (excerpt here); available everywhere books are sold, also on Kindle, Sony and other ereaders. 384 pages. About 7 bucks.

Blurb From Publishers Weekly: Starred Review. “This taut romantic suspense novel from RITA Award–winner Stuart (The Widow) delivers deliciously evil baddies and the type of disturbing male protagonist that only she can transform into a convincing love interest. Chloe Underwood, a 23-year-old American who regards herself as a disappointment to her high-achieving family, makes a meager living in Paris by translating children’s books into English. After accepting a last-minute translating job in the French countryside, she discovers that rather than working for a consortium of food executives, she’s stumbled upon a group of sadistic international arms dealers. Cold-blooded assassin Bastian Touissant, who was sent a year earlier by a nebulous “the ends justify the means” agency to infiltrate this shady group and try to stop its illegal activity, seems to blend right in. On meeting Chloe, Bastian isn’t sure whether she’s a spy, perhaps sent to kill him, or the innocent she appears to be. Despite his ruthlessness, Bastian can’t resist saving Chloe’s life (on multiple, graphic occasions) and attempting to send her back to her family in the U.S. Brilliant characterizations and a suitably moody ambiance drive this dark tale of unlikely love. Agent, Jane Dystel. (May)”

No need to RSVP. If nobody shows up, I will simply create fake identities and talk with my myriad overlapping selves.


9 responses so far

Monday Morning Stepback: Yom Kippur edition!

Sep 28 2009 Published by under Monday Morning Stepback

Actually, there is nothing Yom Kippurish about this post, except that it’s going up just after Yom Kippur ends.

1. Links of interest

Kate Duffy, an editor at Kensington and much more, has passed away. If, like me, you are not in the business and had never heard of her, you can read tributes at Barnes and Noble and Smart Bitches Trashy Books which reveal her tremendous impact on the genre.  As a nonwriter, I rarely think about editors. But after reading those posts, it will be a long time before I forget about how important they are to creating the books I love.

Jane and Joan/Sarah F. at Dear Author posted a terrific reflection on the new Lambda Literary Awards criteria (which requires membership in the LGBT community, thus excluding straight authors who write GLBT fiction) at Dear Author last week, just after I posted last week’s Stepback, but it is such a good discussion (as long as you ignore any comments by “Anonymous”)  that it bears reminding people it is still ongoing.  An LLA board member posted on her own blog to clarify the situation here.

Author Victoria Janssen has been exploring category romance with guest bloggers for the past week. Today’s post is by Maili/McVane and like all of them, is well worth checking out if you don’t mind gnashing your teeth as the OOPness of some of them.

2. Blogs v. Boards

I was surfing around on the AAR boards, which I visit very infrequently, usually when someone there links here, and found this comment, “But in no way can the eleventy zillion blogs that have popped up in romanceland be considered places for discussion.” I wasn’t put out in the least, because my blog happens to be the eleventy zillionth and one.

But I looked around, and I honestly can’t agree with that assessment, at least if the AAR boards are held up as a superior alternative to blogs. There are a lot of very short threads, and not many active ones, it seems to me. The one thread I found really interesting was one where the poster who asked if there’s a point at which romantic suspense becomes too violent to be categorized as romance. I happen to enjoy genre questions, but, if that thread is any indication, those folks don’t.

When I started this blog, I found it odd that boards were less active than blogs. I mentally compared it to the Disney boards I have been frequenting since 2002. The DIS community has 33,000 members, and 2 million threads. I know of few Disney blogs anyone on those boards visits.

Over the past year, I have come to see things a bit differently. For one thing, I  see a lot of the same people on blog after blog. It is not like each blog is a silo with its own group of strangers I have never encountered: there is a lot of overlap among the blogs I visit (which I like, although I know some find it incestuous and problematic). On the DIS, if I move from the Resorts board to the Off Site board, I encounter a whole different set of people (who tend to give each other the evil eye when they cross paths). Then, here, you have certain themes or topics that get treated on several different blogs at once, like the “manifesto” wave of recent times. Today, I believe that the multiple blogs in Romanceland do in fact end up replicating the community function of boards in many ways.

And just in case you think only Romland has its internecine conflicts, I will tell you what the issues are on the DIS that will start a 300 comment thread, get the mods involved, and get at least 2 people banned: 1. refillable mugs, 2. pool hopping, 3. getting your 10+ year old kid in on a child’s ticket. On a more serious note, I have also gotten in trouble for objecting when people write in to ask when Gay Days are held so they can avoid them.

3. Latina romance?

Back in the Spaniard's Bed, The Latin Lover

I hope this question is not ignorant to the point of upsetting anyone, but it occurred to me today that although I have seen lots of discussion about African American romance and m/m or f/f romance, and their categorization, and their marketing, and who can write them and who buys them, I don’t see that when it comes to the Hispanic community in the US. I know Harlequin publishes its books in Spanish, but it looks to me like they are translations, rather than, like the Kimani line, for example, written by and about the Hispanic audience.  And then there are books like the one pictured, which seem more in line with the Greek/Sheik characterization — not really  Latino in the way Kimanis are AA. Of course, there is tremendous diversity among Latinos, but they are 45 million strong in the US, a good 15% per cent of the population, and a growing market force. I know from watching The Soup on E! that telenovelas are very popular, and they are essentially romances, but are romance novels popular as well? And are some written by and for a Latina audience?

4. Contest winner

I am sorry for the delay (I plead Jewish holidays), but the winner of the 3 Romances that Really Cook contest is Phyl (please send your mailing address to jessica@racyromancereviews.com). If you haven’t checked out her blog, you should. She makes really nice quilts, not those old fashioned looking ones that remind you of your mortality, but really colorful, fun ones like this.

5. Embarrassing moment of the week. Erotica related.

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Spouse and I had to shop for a new mattress this week. After I gave in on upgrading to a king size (it’s usually not just us but at least one of the following: cat, dog, boy, in the bed at any given time), we went to test out queen size mattresses at our local furniture store. You are supposed to lie on each mattress for a full 15 minutes, but all I kept thinking about were all of the other people who had laid on them, and their potentially inadequate hygiene habits, and even Andre the Giant could not have kept me down on that thing for more than 90 seconds tops.

Anyway, we were laying there (lying? this is the one I always mess up.) and I wiggled my eyebrows and said, sotto voce, “you know, we really can’t be sure until we #%$#^&^*&^%$ [edited to protect the innocent]  on it.” I heard someone behind me clear his throat, and turned my head to look up into the eyes of the salesman.

It was a former student.

Happy week!




40 responses so far

What Makes Someone a “Professional” Writer?

Sep 25 2009 Published by under Genre musings

Do you recall the criticism of #romfail a while back? I couldn’t be arsed about #romfail, but there was one thread in the commentary that got me thinking. One published author visited an aspiring author’s blog and called her a “HOBBYIST” (all caps) because she hadn’t sold any novels. He complained that unlike other professions, in fiction, all one has to do is say they’re a writer, and poof they are.

On another blog, a published romance novelist, wrote something like, “I think RWA has done more to give people the idea that they are writers than any other single group. The label pre-published and the PRO designation in RWA drive me nuts. You aren’t pre-published any more than you’re pre-pregnant or pre-dead. And you’re not a pro until you’ve been published. Period.”

It really doesn’t matter who said these things, because I am betting their views are shared by a number of people. This post isn’t about them, but about certain ideas of what makes a writer a professional.

For those of you, who, like me, are not RWA members (maybe we’re all pre-members, though?), PRO membership is for folks who

are actively pursuing a career in romance, have completed at least one romance manuscript but hasn’t get gotten “The Call.” Members have to show evidence of submissions of this manuscript (for most of us, that means we have a manuscript that either an agent or editor passed on.) However, this isn’t always true. With the new definition of PAN (the $1000 earning level), many of our PRO members are indeed published, almost without doubt with an e-publisher, but have not yet earned a total of $1000 for one book.

Well, this got me thinking about professions, professionalism and writing.

The three original professions, the “learned professions” were medicine, law and ministry. Sometimes a few others — the military, academia, and architecture — were included. These occupations were granted special status because they required a high degree of education, and were considered very important in satisfying basic human needs.

Using something they call “research”, sociologists today list a number of defining features of a profession, such as

  • status conferring
  • organized
  • autonomous, both the profession as a group and individual practitioners (this is the criterion that makes many people exclude the military)
  • the group has societal influence
  • self-regulating
  • collegial
  • client focused
  • non-commercial
  • has an ethical code

Another way of defining a profession is to look at its history, to see if it has gone through a set of required stages, such as establishing academic programs, seeking political and legal support for recognition and entry barriers, developing a code of ethics, credentialing and licensing, etc. This method allows one to identify different stages of professionalization, rather than the “all or nothing” classification system above.

A third approach is one favored by ethicists, and mocked by social scientists. Naturally, it is the approach I favor, although you will see it referred to as “quaint” and “old fashioned” if you read the sociology journals.

On this view, the core of a profession is not so much the special expertise, but the dedication to something other than one’s own self-interest. For doctors, it’s obviously their patients. For lawyers, their clients, and for ministers, their parishioners.  To “profess” means “to declare aloud”, “to publicly proclaim”. This is why the OED refers to a profession as a “calling”. When you proclaim, you are answering a call of others, not your own needs exclusively. What professionals proclaim is not just their knowledge of medicine or law, for example, but their dedication to altruism, to putting the welfare of those they serve first. These people are “professed”, i.e. publicly committed to a certain ethical ideal. When med school grads say the Hippocratic Oath, they are making this kind of “profession”.

Several virtues, or good character traits, help to define a professional in this sense. We have already mentioned (or implied) altruism, self-regulation, lifelong learning, and submission to an ethical code. There is also accountability, respect, integrity, honesty, excellence, compassion, responsibility, honor, and duty, not just as a human being per se, but while practicing as a member of a profession.

I really don’t see writers as professionals in this sense. Of course, I think art has as important place in a human community as health or law, but the relationship of a writer to her readers is not best characterized in terms of fiduciary duty. In fact, if anything, the more a writer thinks of her audience, the less successful the writing is apt to be.

One problem with this approach is how apolitical it is. It can tend to obscure the ways that even the learned professions are commercial and self-interested, and utilize privileged social positions (who were the original lawyers, doctors and clergy after all? How many of what you think of as “professions” are female dominated, or African American dominated occupations? How many are male or white Anglo dominated? How many pay poorly? How many pay very well?) and wield political power in ways that are unjust.

A typical example in the medical literature is the rise of the AMA in the mid nineteenth century and its virulent opposition to women healthcare providers, especially midwives. Just last year, in response to Ricki Lake’s documentary on midwife assisted home birth, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology declared that the best setting for labor and delivery is a hospital, despite data which suggests otherwise for low risk pregnancies.

When we put on our “lefty glasses” (feminist, Marxist, etc.), we see professions as monopoly labor protectionism. Resources — valuable jobs and high social status — are hoarded by a select group. All the oaths and specialized knowledge are a smokescreen for political power and social privilege. If you can keep the unclean out and name your own (above market) price, you’ve got a profession. From this point of view, denying certain groups, such as women and minorities, access, is just part of the strategy of keeping the labor supply low and the price high.

Looked at ethically again (instead of politically) we can see several themes in the concept of “profession” that are antithetical to the ethical ideals I mentioned above. One is unquestioned loyalty to members of one’s profession. Another is exclusivity and elitism based on credentials. Another is excessive concern for the group’s self-interest.  In this sense, professionalism can be self-protective and excessively inward looking, rather than focusing on its clients and social function.

So, what does all of this have to do with writing?

Well, the first thing to say, in response to the author who claimed that the unpublished writer was merely a “HOBBYIST”, is “pot, meet kettle”. Because nowhere, in any definition of profession one can find, is “being paid for it” a necesary or sufficient condition for being a member of a profession. My 9 year old makes $5 on a summer day selling lemonade. Is he a “Professional Lemonade Merchant”?

How about special training? Hmmmm. Ever heard of an author named Nora Roberts? If the recent New Yorker profile on her is correct, she is “self-taught”. No MFA there, I’m afraid.

Credentialing? Nope.

How about special skills? Excellent writing/unskilled writing doesn’t track the published/unpublished line. Take a look at any “F” review on any romance blog and tell me if it’s true that only well-written books get published. Then look at some of the wonderful free fiction on the web, and tell me it all shows lack of writing skill.

Suppose we accept outright the idea that being published and paid for it means you are a professional writer. Even then, things get murky. Published by whom? Does self-pub count? E-pub? Arguably, in its stance towards e-presses, the RWA evidences some of those protectionist practices I mentioned above. Even if it wasn’t problematic for other reasons, the idea that we can define a professional writer simply as anyone who is “published” raises many more questions than it answers.

I think there’s a strong case to be made that fiction writing is not a profession at all, as that term is commonly understood, such that no writer is really a “professional”.  And I can see the other side as well. But if it is a profession, when we think about how may excellent writers have not been paid for their work, or are not paid enough to quit their day jobs, or how many wonderful writers were not published until after they died, or were not published until after 10 or 15 or 20 years of rejected manuscripts, getting paid to publish is probably not a very important determinant.

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All of this came up in the context of #romfail, the semi-regular event in which Jane of Dear Author and some other folks read a romance novel and make fun of it line by line. It doesn’t pretend to be any kind of serious criticism. I’ll say a few things about that, although my main target here is the quotes with which I began the post.

The naysayers’ claim was that “amateur” and “professional” authors who participate in it are somehow acting unprofessionally. My first thought was that the critics can’t have it both ways: if the pre-published authors are “HOBBYISTS” then why do they have to hew to “professional” standards? But the bigger problem is that even professionals are not professionals 24/7 (do you behave, and dress, and speak, the same way you do on your job, when you are at home?), and I see the romfail stuff as “off duty” fun.

It’s possible (I have no idea) that writers who participate in #romfail or other snarky activities are not being prudent. That is, it is possible they are doing something that thwarts their stated career goals. That’s not a moral issue, but one of practical rationality, and it’s really up to the individual to decide.

It is also possible that they are doing something immoral, but my point is that they are not doing something wrong in virtue of being writers. Whatever moral wrong writers commit (if they do in fact commit one) by participating in #romfail or any other snarky activity, it is the exact same moral wrong that nonwriters commit.

If anything, I think there is a gendered component to charges of “unprofessionalism” in these sorts of situations, but that’s a subject for another post.

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I do realize that published authors have a valuable base of knowledge of the business that unpublished ones do not, and I can also understand getting a bit annoyed if someone doesn’t recognize this difference, and acts like you and she are exactly the same. I know I get a bit put out — for 5 seconds — when people with a BA in some field claim to be experts. In most US colleges, you need 120 credits to graduate, and only about 30 in your major. I knew very little philosophy after my 30 undergraduate credits.

But, while a moment of “hey, wait a minute!” is very human, I have to ask myself why it makes some people so mad that the RWA has these designations, or that some unpublished bloggers refer to themselves as “writers”. They ARE writers, and I commend the RWA for bringing them into the fold with their various designations which recognize different levels of experience. I fail to see what this takes away from published authors, whose success, I am sure, is duly noted by every aspiring writer who desperately wants to join their ranks.

From a feminist/labor point of view, the RWA is to be celebrated for encouraging anyone who enjoys romances to join a local chapter and try their hand at writing one. To me, that’s an example of the service orientation a true profession has, and it’s a salutary counterbalance to other areas where the organization seems, from my outsider point of view, not to have been so open-minded and inclusive. That the RWA doesn’t seem to enforce rigid hierarchies and exclusionary practices in keeping “HOBBYISTS” out encourages more people of various levels of formal education, ages, and economic backgrounds to participate. I would think that, whatever problems there are with the way it is enacted in the RWA structure, the PRO designation and use of terms like “pre-published” encourages more people, rather than fewer, to feel a sense of possibility and promise, to feel that they have a place at the table with the big shots, to feel like they are entitled to at least try. When we talk about empowering women, isn’t this what what we mean?

29 responses so far

When Book Pushers Push You

Sep 23 2009 Published by under What (Not) to Do Wednesday

Yes! My blog is back. *clings*

To celebrate, a post! In which I make you do my thinking for me!

Disclaimer:  this post has not been motivated by the Katiebabs And All of Romanceland v. KMont rumble over Outlander (although that won’t stop me from taking this opportunity to tell KMont that (a) she must read Outlander, and (b) this image of a burning marshmallow and her callous invitation to mentally replace it with a copy of the precious Gabaldon tome will have me sleepless all night).

Rather, the idea for this post came about because of two recent events:

crosleybookcover

1. I had a post-work cocktail party Monday, and therefore cleaned the guest bathroom, where I came upon a copy of a book a fellow bus stop mom had lent me (see above). Months ago. I didn’t ask her for it. She showed up with it and told me I’d love it.

I haven’t read it, perhaps because there is just something about a “quirky twentysomething essayist” who is also a “well connected uber-publicist” that doesn’t attract me.

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2. I was watching the BBC North and South miniseries with Richard Armitage, and I mentioned the author, Elizabeth Gaskell, to my husband. “Have you ever heard of her”? I asked. “Yes”, he replied. “That book is downstairs. My mother left it for you a while ago.” O-kayyyy.

When I journeyed down to said bookcase, I saw a number of other books people had begged me to read over the years. Some were hits (Lying Awake by Mark Salzman, Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood) and some were not (Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif).

We talk a lot about trying to get our friends and family to read romance. As I type this, my own mother is sweating her way through none other than Outlander.

But how do you deal with friends and family trying to get YOU to read THEIR books? Do you politely decline? How so? Do you take a book and sit on it for months, like me? Or do you feel obligated to give it a try for their sake or the sake of politeness? Maybe you’re just eager to give new books a try, even if they are not in the genres or the types you typically read?

Does the relationship of the book pusher to you matter? Is the strength of their desire to get you to read the book a factor?

And what the heck do I do about this Sloane Crosley book?

32 responses so far

How Bad Can a Good Writer Be?

Sep 22 2009 Published by under Uncategorized

Come see what I have to say on this topic over at Romancing the Blog!

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Monday Morning Stepback: Evening Edition

Sep 21 2009 Published by under Uncategorized

My weekly links, opinion, and randomness post.

1. I don’t know how I missed this, but I like Sybil’s 9/3 post on blogging here. But see #3 for alternative concepts of blogging.

2. Connecting loosely with the above, here’s another post that captures my feelings exactly, this time, Blogger Pet Peeves, by The Story Siren.

3. We say a newspaper is the paper of record when it has a large circulation and when its editorials and news are considered professional and typically authoritative. Is there a “blog of record” in Romanceland? In my opinion, Dear Author is that blog. It is easy to take a certain kind of steady excellence for granted, so I want to say that I have never read a “waste of time” post at DA. I rely on DA for publishing news in the romance genre and beyond. Every review — and there are a lot of them — is thorough, accurate, well-written, and interesting. Jane’s trumpeting of e-technologies thwarts the impression that romance readers are unsophisticated luddites and has helped give our genre a voice in publishing industry debates. Genre discussions are sophisticated and timely without being jargony. Unlike other high profile romance sites, DA’s frequent “links posts” connect their audience with smaller bloggers in romance. With various campaigns, the Borders blog, collaborations with Smart Bitches, etc., Jane and co. are terrific supporters and members of the romance community. Their blog is easy to navigate, and illustrates an exemplary balance between monetizing and respecting readers’ needs for simplicity and ease of use.

There are a lot of niche blogs that do things DA doesn’t do, and I am glad of it. And there are other “general purpose” romance websites that do a few things better (I’m thinking specifically of AAR’s searchable reviews). If you think this is an endorsement of every stand anyone on DA takes, you’ve got another think coming. But if I could only bring one blog with me to a desert island, there is no question it would be DA for its romance news, reviews, and genre discussions, as well as the many reader, blogger, author, and editor commentators who make threads as fruitful and interesting to read as the posts themselves. I’m very glad it exists.

4. My city is hosting a book festival next month. Dozens of authors are participating. There’s even a workshop on genre writing. But is there one romance author? Nope. I hate to be a critic of such a positive event, but I am wondering why our state’s thriller, true crime and mystery writers get a seat at the table. Even our little known writers who publish on tiny unknown presses (basically, vanity presses) will be there. I wonder if writing a letter is in order…

5. It’s been a hell of a day. A conference I have been planning most of the last year is finally over, and it was a success, if I do say so myself. The keynote speaker discussed the commodification of health care, and juxtaposed that with the fiduciary responsibilities of health care professionals, who are supposed to treat patients as human persons with inherent value. The one African American person at the conference eloquently and passionately reminded the gathering that commodification in American culture is hardly new. She went on to say that her grandmother was commodified, and, moreover, whenever a girl in a bikini is utilized to sell an automobile or a bottle of beer, every woman in the room is commodified. You know you live in the whitest state in the union when another attendee goes up to her later and asks, straightfaced, “Can you explain what you meant? What do you mean your grandmother was commodified?”.

6. And in bizarre facts I learned recently …  apparently actor Robert Pattinson is so attractive because he has so-called “sanpaku eyes”, in which the whites are visible underneath the iris when the subject is looking straight ahead. Other notables with such eyes were John F. Kennedy Jr. and Princess Diana. In Japanese tradition (sanpaku means “three whites”), it serves as an indicator of a disordered soul, but others say it connotes power and productivity, very attractive traits to females. I have no idea about any of it, but I thought it was a good excuse to post a picture:

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Happy Week!

18 responses so far

Review: Can’t Stand the Heat, by Louisa Edwards

Sep 19 2009 Published by under Reviews

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Can’t Stand the Heat, a contemporary romance set in New York, is Louisa Edwards’ debut novel. Adam Temple is a hotshot young chef, about to open his first restaurant, “Market”, and Miranda Wake is a “notorious” food critic known for “exacting standards”. How’s that for conflict? But wait, there’s more: in the opening scene, a party for Market, a drunk and very hungry Miranda interrupts Adam’s speech (“I don’t want to impress you. I want to nourish you”) by rudely asking where the hell the food is. This precipitates a dare (“You wouldn’t last ten minutes in my kitchen”) which Miranda can’t refuse. Much to the delight of her editor, Miranda agrees to work in Market’s kitchen for a month, producing a series of articles called “Dish it Out: The Adventures of a Critic in the Kitchen.”

But rather than using the kitchen as a convenient sexual gymnasium (as the cover, alas, implies), Edwards immerses the reader in the world of big city nouvelle cuisine. Through Miranda’s observant eyes, we learn how a high fashion kitchen works, from the managers, to the wait staff, to the dishwashers, to the line cooks, to the young externs from the culinary school. We even visit farmers’ markets with Adam, seeing him interact with vendors and plan his menus. It may sound a little dull if you are not interested in food (it’s nirvana if you are), but here’s the thing: Edwards manages to saturate this book with fascinating cooking and restaurant business details by weaving them seamlessly into the characters and plot. I never felt like the victim of an info dump. I just felt like I was being told a very interesting story about a world I don’t know by someone who knew what she was talking about.

And here’s another unexpected bonus: a wonderful secondary romance between Miranda’s younger brother, Jess, and an employee of Adam’s. Nineteen year old Jess is a closeted gay man (something we find out very early on), just learning to accept his sexuality. Miranda, several years his senior, basically raised Jess when their parents were killed. Both Jess’s sexual awakening  and the development of his relationship with Miranda, who has always been a mother figure, provided some of the most compelling moments –both romantic and dramatic — in the book.

This is a romance between adults. Although I love contemporaries, one common problem is the invention of internal conflict. Neither Adam nor Miranda really have any inner reason not to fall in love. In that sense, this is a low conflict romance, something I really enjoy.  At most, Miranda’s self-reliance leads her to be somewhat closed off, an aspect of her personality which the emotional and open Adam has trouble with. It’s very satisfying and realistic.

I know some romance readers like a high internal conflict romance because that kind of conflict tends to produce a lot of sexual tension. This book is proof that sexual tension is not necessary for a very sexy read. Imagine, these mature individuals were actually able to work side by side together without jabbing each other every five seconds with his erection of steel and her pebbled nipples!

The “food critic” versus “chef” conflict peters out naturally as Miranda and Adam get to know one another, but two external conflicts crop up, one related to her brother’s relationship with Adam’s friend, and another related to what Miranda can and can’t say about goings on in the kitchen for her audience. Miranda really messes them both up, in a pretty wince-inducing and heartbreaking way.  That I cared so much about hurt done not only to Adam, but to Jess and others in the book is a testament to how well Edwards fleshed out several secondary characters.

One thing I found interesting was the difference Miranda identified early on between Adam and herself. She thinks, “Writing reviews was a job. A good job, one she’d pushed hard to get, and continued to strive to do well. But it was still, in the end, work. Adam didn’t work in the kitchen. He lived it, breathed it, embodied it.” I bet you thought that since I have Simone de Beauvoir in my banner, that I was going to complain about this. Hell no! Some relationships thrive on equal passion for work, but some require one partner to subordinate his or her own career to some extent for a partner.  Miranda is very insightful, and her early acceptance of Adam’s passion for the restaurant helped me to believe in their HEA.

A couple of things didn’t work for me. For one thing, Miranda doesn’t know the first thing about cooking. This gives Adam an excuse to take her back to his apartment and give her cooking lessons, but the idea that a major big city food critic can’t even poach an egg threw me out of the story. Food critics need to be great writers and have great palates, as Miranda does, but I am pretty sure most of them have at least some cooking school or kitchen experience.

A second thing is a weakness that is the other side of a strength. I really liked the way the “foodiness” found its way into Adam’s thinking, but sentences like, “The idea lit up Adam’s mind like the power burner on his Viking range”, or “This was a woman coming apart like an overcooked sauce”, or “Miranda’s eyes popped open like he’s slipped her a surprise jalapeno pepper” got to be too much of a good thing after a while.

Kind of like that last bite of a too-big slice of German chocolate cake. ;)

Something I haven’t touched on is the amount of humor in the book. Although I would not call it a light hearted romp, in several places it really is very funny.

Overall, I really enjoyed Can’t Stand the Heat.  An added bonus is several recipes at the end, followed by an excerpt of Edwards’ next book (spring 2010, I think), which features a conceited gorgeous celebrity chef whom we got to know in Can’t Stand the Heat. I will definitely be reading it.

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