The Age of Umbrage, Part Two

 This went viral on Facebook a few weeks ago: Name ten writers you’ve read at least five books by. The responses were plentiful and it was fun to see who others come back to time after time.

Until someone decided to take offense. Too many lists were oversaturated with male writers.

This is a multi-level complaint. First, it implies women are underrepresented as writers, but are they? As of 2021, according to Wordsrated.com, 50.4% of authors in the United States are women. True, they only make 96% as much money, but that can likely be attributed to sales. As women buy most of the books in this country, I’ll leave that question open.

(I don’t know why Wordsrated uses the term “salaries,” as fiction authors generally work on advances and royalties. If anyone can show I missed something, please let me know in the comments.)

More bothersome was the implication the respondents were  prejudice against women authors. Speaking only for myself as one who named all male writers, my tastes were formed forty to fifty years ago, when not nearly as many women were published. The Wordsrated study shows the average age of authors working in the United States is 42, which means most writers working today weren’t born when my tastes were coming together.

It was deplorable that women were so badly underrepresented in so many areas; we all suffered. I recently watched a video of the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein and was struck by how few female faces were in what was/is arguably the world’s greatest orchestra. By “few” I mean “none.” Today’s orchestras are better than their predecessors, if only because until recently they excluded half the talent pool.

It only makes sense that fiction writing, and reading, is better off with more proportional representation of  women and minorities. That doesn’t change my tastes. I appreciate Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, and Laura Lippman as outstanding writers; Kinsey Milhone, V.I. Warshawsky, and Tess Monahan are enduring and ground-breaking characters. I cut my PI reading teeth on Mike Hammer and Spenser; I like my detectives to be more proactive in their case resolutions. (Yes, by “proactive” I mean “violent.”) I came to love police procedurals through reading Joseph Wambaugh and Ed McBain. I’m not apologizing for it.

Do I wish women had been better represented in those days? Absolutely. Can I do anything about it? No. Even if I were to read nothing but books by women, it would not help those who were discriminated against fifty years ago; they’re all dead. And I really can’t do anything for those who were most damaged, because their books never saw the light of day.

People tend to listen to the music they fell in love with in high school and college for the rest of their lives. Our parents listened to swing bands long after they were no longer in vogue. I fell in love with jazz when I played in my high school’s stage band; with classical while performing in my college orchestra. Now I listen to a lot of country music because that’s what I heard around the house when I was a kid. It’s musical comfort food for me. About the youngest country singers I listen to today are Dwight Yoakum and Patty Loveless. Both are my age.

The types of books men and women write also matters. I doubt there is a better writer working today, crime or otherwise, than Megan Abbott. I loved Queenpin and think Bury Me Deep belongs in college classes. Since Dare Me, though, the books she writes are about people so distant from my tastes and interests I have no connection to them and, frankly, don’t really care what happens to them.

Psychological suspense stories are immensely popular gith now. These books typically involve a middle-class or higher person or family – often a woman – who is subjected to what can best be described as psychological torture by someone who may or may not be known to them. The best of these books are well written and obviously compelling to many or they wouldn’t sell as they do. I rarely read them. I grew up working class, and my sensibilities and sympathies remain so. Working class people don’t fuck with your mind; they fuck with you personally. I am far more likely to be drawn to protagonists in novels by Dennis Lehane or James D.F. Hannah, as those are people with whom I can most readily identify. As Lehane said when asked why he didn’t write about rich people: “I don’t give a fuck about them.” The same applies to my reading.

We all like what we like. As authors, we should be grateful that people are reading at all rather than taking them to task for not reading who we think they should read, whatever the reason. I’m 68 years old and there are more books I want to read than I have time for; I’m not looking for new horizons. I enjoy stumbling onto someone new – the past two years I tripped over Don Winslow and Loren Estelman – but their prose falls into my already established wheelhouse..

Let’s agree that I won’t criticize or try to shame you into reading what I think you should, and you will show me the same courtesy.

Or I’m liable to take umbrage.