As part of the hoopla surrounding Franzen's new book, there's a growing debate about the varying media attention to men and women writers. Do men receive more honors and media attention for their books, while women writers are either ignored or painted as "Chick Lit" authors?
Slate reports that the New York Times Book Review reviews many more male writers than female writers. Of the 545 books that the Book Review reviewed between 6/08 and 8/10, 62 percent were written by men and 38 percent were written by women. They put their entire spreadsheet up on Google Docs.
Publishers have pushed women writers to fit into the Chick-Lit genre, because they think it's easy money. They take a book, which is about coming to terms with your family, and they put a picture on the cover of a decapitated girl in a party dress and heels. A book, which was about running away from the expected and the traditional, is sold as a love story.
A publicity goon sent me a mystery novel to review over the summer. I've been trying to be better about reading the free books that end up on my doorstep, so I decided to read it, even though I'm not a mystery story type of person. After a couple of chapters, I decided that the book was dreadful. It was so dreadful that I thought I should read the whole thing just so I could write an Anthony Lane-style review filled with elegant sneers. In the end, I decided not to write the review, because the writer had kind eyes in her picture on the back of the book, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings.
That book was a mystery novel wrapped in a chick-lit package. The plot was non-existent. The dead body didn't arrive until page 70. The villain did the classic monologue confession in the last chapter of the book. The story could have been ripped off from an episode of Scooby-Doo. The author spent most of her time trying to create an appealing heroine who wears Spanks and likes pulled pork sandwiches. There's a love interest, of course, who wears tight pants that shows off his nice ass. The author seemed to think that she could substitute fine writing with lots of name-dropping of familiar products.
There is clearly an imbalance between men and women in the serious book category, the type of books that are reviewed by the New York Times. However, the fault doesn't lie with the New York Times Book Review, but with publishers who are choosing to overlook the many women writers that don't conform to the chick-lit formula.
Apt. 11d 
I’m about a third of the way thru Franzen’s Freedom and am enjoying it moderately so far. It is well written for sure but many female writers write well too and don’t seem to get the accolades that Franzen is getting for this one. I recently read Faithful Place by Tana French (highly recommend it!) and felt it was every bit as well written and more interesting (based on only the third of Franzen’s book that I’ve read). I also love Lionel Shriver books- both Shriver and French write in ways that dont’ seem particularly female or male to me but just interesting.Not sure how critics view them to be honest.
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Don’t let the NYT off the hook too easily, Laura. Those women who are being overlooked are still, for the most part, being published, but with small print runs and without as much publicity. The NYT could be a bit more imaginative about whom they review. They could also challenge their readers a bit more — lots of dreary books about US history get reviewed (appealing, presumably, to well-off men in late middle age) but academic books from other disciplines don’t get anywhere near as much of a look in. They could easily do what the occasional high-quality DJ does — alert us to things that we wouldn’t otherwise have come across because they are not being hyped. And, whereas 20 years ago that would mean reviewing books we couldn’t get hold of, nowadays you can get hold of anything in 3 days.
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“The pissiness of a few, vocal female writers at Franzen’s success strikes me as a bit mean spirited and jealous. ”
I seem to recall Franzen’s first book was hailed as the Next Great Thing, too, with very little evidence. Now, I confess I haven’t read Franzen’s books; I just recall the hubbub.
Katie Roiphe reviewed Mockingjay in Sunday’s NYTBR (which I happened to read because I was in NY for a funeral this weekend :(. I was kind of surprised.
If you get a chance, e- me the name of the mystery writer. If I’m familiar with her, I may be able to give insight.
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The Twenty-Seventh City? Published in 1988? I remember it barely registering, except for enthusiasm from the (a?) Newsweek correspondent in Atlanta, back when there was such a job.
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Speaking of overrepresentation, y’all know what’s grossly overrepresented in publishing? Books about, around, in, on top of, under, or otherwise adhering to New York. Grossly. Gee. Are. Oh. Ess. Ess. Ell. Why.
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Why did I think Corrections was his first?
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Sexism?
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Too many books about New York. Too many books about the history of dead white guys. What else?
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If you’ve gone to a bookstore with a kid, the problem is too many toys. Plus, the Borders by us has a fridge full of drinks and a rack of M & Ms and other candy. Since the grocery store has John Grisham and Twilight, I suppose it is fair, but I am still annoyed.
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When Publisher’s Weekly’s Ten Best books of the Year were all men last year there was some good blogging about the perceived differences between men’s and women’s books. One blogger who had been on a similar selection committee reported the tendency to label men’s books, even flawed ones, as more encompassing, as trying to be “big”; women’s books, however flawless, were seen as small and lesser in scope. Subjects like war even if only as it affects men are “universal”; subjects like childbirth are somehow special and apart and female even though we are all apparently born.
One observation I would make is that sentiment and cliche are very differently received when it’s a man doing the sentimentalizing. And genres like crime and spy fiction that are seen as male are not considered embarrassing in the way that even very good romances are, even though they are regularly just as facile and self-indulgent. No one (but me) bitched about how Jonathan Lethem’s “Motherless Brooklyn” started off as terrific literary fiction and then degenerated into a stupid guns-n-cars thriller, but if it had instead taken a right turn into romance territory it would have never been taken at all seriously.
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Women writers aren’t pissed at Franzen’s success. They’re pissed that the media is falling all over him in a way that the media almost never does for great women writers.
There’s a crucial difference, I think.
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Yes, you’re right, Anjali. I’ll edit that sentence.
harry b makes good points.
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“Too many books about New York. Too many books about the history of dead white guys.”
This seems like a description of Steve’s Christmas recommendations. All of which my wife got me, and all of which I really liked, but all of which involved either New York or dead white guys.
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Did you really take Steve’s Christmas recommendations? Oh, that’s great. I’ll have him do his book list again in December. It actually brought me in a lot of $$ from Amazon. I get a small kick back every time someone buys a book from a link on this blog. But that’s why publishers keep doing these history books and the NYT keeps reviewing them. You and Steve are part of that small group of people who still buys books in this country.
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