Please invite Ms. Shriver to be your correspondent at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago this August. She knows how to cover the demise of an organization without looking like a hack.
And since there is bound to be plenty of "mostly peaceful" protesting of the George Floyd sort, send that Oliver Wiseman guy as her personal security detail...
I wholeheartedly agree..The DNC Convention promises to be a shitshow as today's young idiot pretenders (Hamas?) try to emulate their smarter '68 forebears (Viet Nam). Now who do you think should be the star correspondent at the RNC equivalent as the GOP grapples with anointing a possible convicted felon (with three possible trials to come..) as its nominee?
But man, does it ever reveal the sordid underbelly of Trump world and its dealings, the sycophants and fixers within it and what gets done at the behest of one man. No matter the illegality, no matter the dishonesty, it all has to get done for the endgame. You say it resembles political punishment and lawfare, and that’s your opinion. I say Trump resembles a Mafia don (pun intended..)
So much better to get 50 plus former U.S. intelligence officials, at the behest of Anthony Blinken, to claim the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. The damage done to the credibility of our intelligence community is badly hurting the country as a whole; do I dare say much more so than a tabloid behaving in a way that is well, tabloidy.
I couldn't agree more. Frankly, those judges should tell both sides to get started already, not stay on hold. If Trump is not guilty, I'll see it in his lawyers' counterarguments. If he's guilty, I'll see him in a jumpsuit. Either verdict is acceptable to me, but said trials and verdicts are necessary for the public to understand exactly who they're voting for in Trump.
Not sure. I don't find the RNC nearly as problematic. As for Trump, his show-trials are uninteresting to me. His malfeasance is nothing compared to that of the Democrats in power. To paraphrase Chiang Kai-Shek: Trump is a disease of the skin, the Democrats are a disease of the heart. There is no comparison between the two. One group has a stranglehold over hundreds, if not thousands of institutions across America. The other is a crass, New York bully who was basically a Democrat for his entire life until around 2015...
His malfeasance is nothing? Okay. Forget Jan 6. Who gives a shit over a supposed touristy picnic (it was described that way by some idiot..)
If Biden were to go through his private lawyers as Trump did and orchestrate illegal electors in Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia in order to secure victories in states he did not win (all of which now are either guilty as charged or are indicted), and then get his hapless VP Harris to sign off on it - every bloody Republican from top to bottom and in between in this country would scream in absolute outrage. You know it. I know it. And yet Trump in every MAGA household gets a pass. How come no one cares?
Well, I am not a MAGA type. I live too far away to have that level of involvement. But this is pretty easy:
1. January 6 was simply NOT an insurrection at all. It was a mess. Nothing more. It was, like many Trump things, a lazy, half-assed attempt at spewing bullshit. But an insurrection, is clearly was not. So there is no "there" there.
2. Using his office for corrupt aims. Sure. I'll go for it. And I still don't care. I would be 100% supportive of prosecutions against Trump is these prosecutions continued across ALL political figures and if they helped expose ALL ways and manners in which the US government has been corrupted. From Biden and Burisma, to Obama and his kill-lists, to Hillary Cunton and Bill... and the Bush wars... etc., etc... But that is the whole point. You marvel at how Trump gets a pass while people like you are willing to hand out fistfulls of passes to the guys you like.
3. I am no Trump fan. But I am going to vote for him for no other reason than it infuriates the left. The enemy of my enemy is my friend...
What fistful of passes am I handing out? And to whom? Long post, but not a word on the scenario I described that Trump is accused of if it had been attempted by Biden instead. Illegal electors is an attempt at election interference. It is a trial that should be held. If Trump is found innocent, okay. But American voters need to know.
American voters do know. They know that for 60+ years Donald Trump was a darling because he was part of the "in-club". Then, he had the temerity to believe that he could challenge the anointed successor to Black Jesus, Hillary Cunton. And, despite all the efforts to derail his campaign and the lies about Russia... he fucking won!
As I said, I am no fan of Trump. But I love how much the left hates him. As for the "passes" you hand out... from the Steele Dossier onward, I have no interest in anything anyone has to say about corruption, misinformation, etc. This was a failed hatchet job and the leftist media will never rest until they can do the only thing that matters... "get Trump."
This is not about justice. It is about retribution. Fine. I don't care. But don't delude yourself into thinking that getting Trump is a matter of justice. It isn't...
FWIW, if Tiffany Heynard ran for president, I'd vote for her...
PEN, sadly, is saddled with a membership that cannot publish unless every written word is vetted by a group of Manhattan editors who have replaced intellectual diversity and literacy with a billet of checkboxes.
Every new novel must adhere to the same formula. PEN could go off the reservation and look for literacy outside of the big Manhattan publishing houses, but then they'd miss out the next Big Thing.
Instead of holding the award ceremony, PEN decided to put out a "Guide To Combating Campus Protest Mis/Disinformation". Of course, it links to such "trusted" sites as Politifact and BBC Verify - the latter seems to use Hamas itself as its ultimate arbiter of most "facts".
I used to read a lot of new fiction. I had to stop. The new stuff is so formulaic, so predictable in its relentless politics. Literary awards used to be about literature, so I use their short lists from decades past and have found quite a few great reads lately.
As do I; however, doing so is a manifestation of retreat into what Victor Davis Hanson calls the "monastery of the mind", a disengagement from the present world that is sad and abnormal. Subscribing to TFP is a way to counter that by occasionally finding content that is both intellectually nourishing and current, plus discovering common experience with others like yourself. :)
True. But I have hermit and contrarian tendencies so it is not as sad and abnormal for me. And I think you are right about TFP. I appreciate the camaraderie in the comments.
My experience as well. The most recent fiction book I actually managed to finish was Barbara Kingsolver's "Demon Copperhead"; but even that, a book about the ravages of growing up white-trash poor in modern opioid-saturated Appalachia, insisted on making its protagonist octaroon. Really? Poor whites don't even get one book in which to be a victim unalloyed to another acceptably-established victim category?
The formulaic is now also de rigueur in non-fiction as well. Two consecutive new historical works I've read have treated the topics of cannibalism and human sacrifice in indigenous cultures as morally relative, precluding any negative assessment. Both authors explicitly maintained that our admiration for the Maori and Aztec cultures should not be dimmed by their robust engagement in ceremonial bashing skulls and live evisceration of humans combined with cannibalism in the presence of bountiful non-human food. OK, and my niece thinks I'm barbaric for eating fish.
Isn't the point, though, that writers deemed acceptable to Manhattan editors use race, gender, sexuality and fealty to particular politics as a stead for old-fashioned character development?
There's no nuance in mainstream literature today. It's all virtue signalling and indoctrination into a specific, shallow worldview consisting of perpetrator and victim.
I write crime thrillers, a subset of the huge mystery field. The only thing that counts for my Manhattan editors is whether the story is well written, the characters well developed, the plot exciting, and that the book make money, with the last being Job One.
But genre literature is vast differently from Literature-with-a-capital L. I don't read much of the latter, so I couldn't tell you what those editors are looking for. You may well be correct that some mainstream Literature is shallow virtue-signaling, but I can't imagine all of it is.
Shane, I don't think my comment applies to you. You established yourself almost 20 years ago within, as you said, the crime thrillers genre (with a female police officer protagonist - women make up about 1/8 of police officers today). You've been published by various independent publishers, not the Big Five. I don't know your genre at all, no disrespect intended, but it looks like you've had a hard time with publishing since the initial female cop series. It's a difficult world.
At any rate, you've gone out there and written, and that's a big deal. So many of us say we have a book in there somewhere, but we don't even try. When I read what first-time authors are writing today and getting published by the Big Five, it's discouraging. It really seems like formula. For the superset of your genre, seemingly everything is a safe, humorless, lifeless replica of Gone Girl.
Agreed it doesn't apply to me, Jim. The hard time you mentioned I had was correct, but it was personal, not professional.
I was published by Kensington, the largest independent publisher in the United States, which back then was as big as some of the (then) Big Nine or Ten or whatever they were. Then my wife of 40 years died of metastatic cancer, followed within 18 months by her father and mother. Three quick-on deaths then all the legal and practical stuff in the aftermath knocked the creativity out of me for years.
Then came Covid, then my father became terminally ill in Arizona, so I moved from Chicago to help my mom and sisters (everyone who died was my wife's side) take care of him. I'm delighted I did so because Dad was a great and good man, but it knocked me off my perch again. He died last year. This year, my creativity is back and a new novel is with my agent getting ready for the sales market.
Is what's being published today largely formula? Absolutely. Part of that is because Big Publishing quit supporting authors who wrote anything but what Publishing considered a "surefire guaranteed blockbuster." Everyone looks to what that was, and now we see a lot of Jack Reacher, James Patterson, and Gone Girl clones. Nobody can do clones like the masters did the originals, but Publishing is obsessed with recreating the magic of That One Monster Breakout, so here we are.
That's the genre business, which is my wheelhouse. The "literary" side, where Folx paddle canoes to Outer Burpistan to discover their Authentic Truths of Selves in the Jungle of No Return while eating Tasty Anticolonial Food made from bugs, I don't bother with because it's largely unapproachable. Also, whiny.
I was only making the brief that within genre, white characters pretty much still rule the roost, partly because Publishing is comfortable with them because they sell well, partly because this nation is still majority white and thus so is the majority of the book buying sector. I don't think that will change any time soon.
Good talking with you, Jim, I hope this wasn't TMI.
Whites are depicted favorably in almost all books on the NYT bestseller list. James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux series. John Sandford's Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers series. Steve Berry's Cotton Malone series. Kristin Hannah's "The Women." My own "The Fury." (Mine most emphatically did not make the NYT list.)
Burke, Sandford, and Berry sell 60 million copies combined. Hannah is new to the New York Times fiction list and no whites were injured in the making of her story. In my book, whites are heroes and browns are villains or heroes, depending.
Don't worry, whites aren't going away any time soon, either in the halls of power or in fiction. We will continue to rule both.
The NYT list is not a literary award, which is the topic at hand. I don't bother with the mass market stuff you offer as evidence. Among my favorite fiction authors are Jhumpa Lahiri, Khaled Housseni, V.S. Naipal, Chang-rae Lee, Yann Martel, and Gabriel Marquez, none of whom are white. I neither appreciate nor deserve your insinuation that I believe that "damned octoroons should know their place". I merely take issue with award committees that are obsessed with the kind of virtue signaling that leads to the endless repetition of the same theme. Perhaps if you were a more talented author you wouldn't need to troll about in the comments section dropping your nasty little turds in other peoples' punch bowls.
"The NYT list is not a literary award, which is the topic at hand."
--It was not the topic at hand, because you didn't say "literary award." You said "award-winning." Write more clearly next time.
"I don't bother with the mass market stuff you offer as evidence."
--You're too stuffy to understand genre, so I'm not surprised.
"Among my favorite fiction authors are Jhumpa Lahiri, Khaled Housseni, V.S. Naipal, Chang-rae Lee, Yann Martel, and Gabriel Marquez, none of whom are white."
--If your favorites don't depict whites favorably, your issue is with them, not with "award committees." If they DO depict whites favorably, then why are you complaining?
"I neither appreciate nor deserve your insinuation that I believe that "damned octoroons should know their place"."
--You complained that Kingsolver ruined the purity of a poor white character by making the character octaroon. You earned far more than the little bit of snark I dished out.
"Perhaps if you were a more talented author you wouldn't need to troll about in the comments section dropping your nasty little turds in other peoples' punch bowls."
--I paid to be here same as you, so I will wander where my heart takes me to drop my little pearls.
I, too, have mostly given up on new fiction of the 'literate' variety. But there is lots of good new fiction that provides thoughtful settings, good character development, and introspective contemplation from authors who aren't part of the in crowd. Can be hard to find but it is out there anyway thanks to self-publication and the internet (at least one good thing from that cesspool anyway). And you are spot on about using the critical recommendations from the time before the mind-virus as an additional guide!
"I, too, have mostly given up on new fiction of the 'literate' variety. But there is lots of good new fiction that provides thoughtful settings, good character development, and introspective contemplation from authors who aren't part of the in crowd."
While true, I no longer have the time or patience to go though the drek to find The Good Stuff. Same with Music/Movies. Thee was a time when a song/album was in the top 10 there was a Good Chance I'd like it, If a Movie won Oscars it was worth watching. These days Not..So..Much.
I recommend (in addition to Ms Shriver) Julian Barnes, especially Noise of Time. It is a fictionalized account of the life of Dimitri Shostakovich in Stalin’s Russia. Really captures life in the conformist “paradise” that was the USSR
My book club has shifted to too many "woke" style books. That being said, one of my favorite books they did recommend was "Pachinko" by Min Jee Lee. It was so well written and quite an interesting story.
"PEN, sadly, is saddled with a membership that cannot publish unless every written word is vetted by a group of Manhattan editors who have replaced intellectual diversity and literacy with a billet of checkboxes."
I feel this! I work in publishing (though not trade publishing) and can't believe how, with all the "diversity" pushes in the industry, no one bothers to mention that the big 5 publishers' workforce is composed mostly of 20-something women in Manhattan.
Like, is this group really capable of choosing and publishing material that reflects the tastes of the entire country? Do you think that could influence the shrinking number of readers and declining book sales in the US?
No writer today wields her right of free speech more boldly or more incisively. Lionel Shriver's essays, speeches and novels never disappoint. I'd eagerly read her grocery lists, too.
i resigned from PEN Malta - one of the organization's newest branches - last year when it officially adopted an explicitly anti-Israel position. That was well before 10/7, so I shudder to think what they're doing now.
No, Ms Shriver, writers aren't special (and I am a published one, in a small way). They comprise just as many bigots and mindless progressives as any other affinity group.
I suspect more cowardice than bigotry. Someone once pointed out that Galileo’s contemporaries understood astronomy as well as he did, but they had families to feed.
Why was Galileo put on trial for believing the sun was the center of our solar system (heliocentrism)? This video looks at Renaissance science, Copernicus, Galileo, and the Inquisition that put Galileo on trial.
I’m not sure it’s fair to call PEN America “an organization established for the defense of free speech of every sort” anymore, considering they’ve spent the last two years waging culture war against parents who are trying to read school library books aloud at school board meetings. Their definition of free speech is that anything a teacher or school librarian says is free speech and anyone who disagrees with what they say is fascist. In that sort of environment, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect them to jump on the side of the left wing cause of the day.
To be clear, I’m not taking a stand on Gaza or on which books should be in the school library. I’m just saying that if your organization decides to throw out its principles for a moment of partisan advantage, you reap what you sow.
Shriver is a BRILLIANT writer and observer. While I do not agree with her on all issues I ALWAYS read anything that is produced when she puts PEN to paper ( couldn't resist that one).
Lionel Schriver is one of my favorite artists since this whole thing has gone down. One of the other ones? Nick Cave. These guys know BS when they see it, and they have the courage to call it out. I find them very, very inspiring. Thanks for publishing this great opinion article.
Support independent literature! I wrote a novel inspired by the real-life underground movement to defy the British blockade and smuggle Jews into Mandate Palestine before, during, and after WW2 up to the rebirth of the state of Israel. Little did I know that I’d end up independently publishing it (since this isn’t the kind of thing that seems to interest the literary establishment these days) in the wake of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Or that Amazon would block me from advertising it due to a vague policy about “current events” (presumably, the war that Hamas started when terrorists invaded Israel and slaughtered over 1,200 Jews means that it would be offensive to advertise a novel about Jews rescuing Jews from the Shoah).
Anyway, at the risk of a shameless plug, it’s a pretty good read and I hope some FP readers will consider checking it out:
I too appreciate your plug and look forward to novel. It’s disgraceful and demeaning to be shunned by the likes of Amazon or “The Literary Establishment”…. 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱
Considering that Jewish and Israeli writers are being noplatformed by literary magazines and publishing houses right now, I am not surprised by the overt antisemitism of these writers. They are emblematic of what is going on in publishing circles around the globe right now. Open and overt Jew hatred is on display.
The truth of the matter is that the "elites" in western society have lost the plot about what it means to live in a free society. They are no different than the Columbia students demanding humanitarian aid.
Also I remember when PEN writers condemned giving CharlieHebdo that award. It was shameful then and only goes to show the world how these PEN members have always been morally bankrupt.
Being an "intellectual," which most PEN members think they are, obviously doesn't mean that the person is actually intelligent. It just means they are filled with hubris, gile, and selfimportance. Not really a good look.
The "woke" mob are so used to getting their way by whining and complaining. It happened during MeToo, lockdowns, BLM, for every new trans flag, etc. This particular issue might be the first time large organizations are *sometimes* pushing back, and there's a bit of a fracture. Eventually, though, most organizations will end up capitulating to the pro-Hamas group, since the old guard (whether they be Zionist, pro-free-speech/anti-cancel-culture, or just against terrorism) are retiring, and the indoctrinated masses of millennial and younger "new elites" are moving in.
The American Fiction movie continues... A great article!
However, I am convinced that, with all these waves of woke movements of the last decade plus, orchestrated by foreign powers and their pawns in the US, we are at the point of no return. Welcome to USSR/China of the yesteryear! The new regime will solve all 'minor' issues - spoilt silly students, ethnic and gender grievances, homosexuality, Islam hatred of the entire non-Muslim world - quickly and decidedly. As they always do. They have plenty of people to spare in the pursuit. Old and proven method!
I feel like a frog in water as it heats up. Our wonderful country is infected by a virus of cowardice destroying individual common sense, courage and principal. The "Snowflakes" of yesterday, who complained of misgendering microaggressions, today, cover their faces, occupy university offices, and demand food from their pathetic, "woke," university leaders as they blindly support heinous terrorism of October 7th. Beware, the boiling point is close...
I have read Lionel Shriver's writings, and have been awed by her intellect, eloquence and moral compass. Now I am also awed by her courage to stand against these infantile Jew-hating brats and risk the ire of cowardly organizations such as PEN and the useful idiots who cheer on the death cult that would do to those same idiots what they did to thousands of innocent Israelis on October 7.
Of course PEN put its full weigh behind the “banning” of books in public school. Apparently there weren’t enough books actually banned to create a real stir so their creative writers changed the definition. Banned books are any book to which access is limited. So, if a book is deemed to be beyond the level of sexual exposure that is appropriate for a 3rd grader and is moved to a middle school library, that book is “banned” under PEN’s definition. My research shows that every “banned” book is still available in my state’s public libraries. But never underestimate the power of hysteria to a fundraising apparatus. It is certainly disheartening to see the level of hypocrisy exhibited by these organizations.
Dear Bari Weiss,
Please invite Ms. Shriver to be your correspondent at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago this August. She knows how to cover the demise of an organization without looking like a hack.
And since there is bound to be plenty of "mostly peaceful" protesting of the George Floyd sort, send that Oliver Wiseman guy as her personal security detail...
I wholeheartedly agree..The DNC Convention promises to be a shitshow as today's young idiot pretenders (Hamas?) try to emulate their smarter '68 forebears (Viet Nam). Now who do you think should be the star correspondent at the RNC equivalent as the GOP grapples with anointing a possible convicted felon (with three possible trials to come..) as its nominee?
Matt Taibbi! He’s not a Trump fan, but he’ll be fair and funny.
It's fascinating to me how a phrase like "convicted felon" is morphing, in this context, into something on the level of "three-time Grammy nominee."
Who knows, it may morph still to a 'three time convicted felon'..
This looks like a short-term pyrrhic victory of political hackery. It has the feel of political punishment, and the "lawfare" charge resonates.
But man, does it ever reveal the sordid underbelly of Trump world and its dealings, the sycophants and fixers within it and what gets done at the behest of one man. No matter the illegality, no matter the dishonesty, it all has to get done for the endgame. You say it resembles political punishment and lawfare, and that’s your opinion. I say Trump resembles a Mafia don (pun intended..)
So much better to get 50 plus former U.S. intelligence officials, at the behest of Anthony Blinken, to claim the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. The damage done to the credibility of our intelligence community is badly hurting the country as a whole; do I dare say much more so than a tabloid behaving in a way that is well, tabloidy.
Both can be true. It can be a sordid underbelly that would never be prosecuted if the politically-powerful don wasn't Trump.
I agree with your assessment almost to a tee...
Which is why he seems so "presidential"...
Hell, in a hundred years Trump might be elevated to the status of FDR!
What about those multi-million dollar payments for “the big guy?” Who had, I believe, three aliases? That sounds very Sopranos to me.
God, I hope so. The indictments are so filled with facts as to make "convicted felon" very real.
They certainly are. Let’s hope another trial can somehow take place before the balloting begins. The American voter deserves it.
I couldn't agree more. Frankly, those judges should tell both sides to get started already, not stay on hold. If Trump is not guilty, I'll see it in his lawyers' counterarguments. If he's guilty, I'll see him in a jumpsuit. Either verdict is acceptable to me, but said trials and verdicts are necessary for the public to understand exactly who they're voting for in Trump.
Not sure. I don't find the RNC nearly as problematic. As for Trump, his show-trials are uninteresting to me. His malfeasance is nothing compared to that of the Democrats in power. To paraphrase Chiang Kai-Shek: Trump is a disease of the skin, the Democrats are a disease of the heart. There is no comparison between the two. One group has a stranglehold over hundreds, if not thousands of institutions across America. The other is a crass, New York bully who was basically a Democrat for his entire life until around 2015...
The Democratic Party of America delenda est!
His malfeasance is nothing? Okay. Forget Jan 6. Who gives a shit over a supposed touristy picnic (it was described that way by some idiot..)
If Biden were to go through his private lawyers as Trump did and orchestrate illegal electors in Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Georgia in order to secure victories in states he did not win (all of which now are either guilty as charged or are indicted), and then get his hapless VP Harris to sign off on it - every bloody Republican from top to bottom and in between in this country would scream in absolute outrage. You know it. I know it. And yet Trump in every MAGA household gets a pass. How come no one cares?
Well, I am not a MAGA type. I live too far away to have that level of involvement. But this is pretty easy:
1. January 6 was simply NOT an insurrection at all. It was a mess. Nothing more. It was, like many Trump things, a lazy, half-assed attempt at spewing bullshit. But an insurrection, is clearly was not. So there is no "there" there.
2. Using his office for corrupt aims. Sure. I'll go for it. And I still don't care. I would be 100% supportive of prosecutions against Trump is these prosecutions continued across ALL political figures and if they helped expose ALL ways and manners in which the US government has been corrupted. From Biden and Burisma, to Obama and his kill-lists, to Hillary Cunton and Bill... and the Bush wars... etc., etc... But that is the whole point. You marvel at how Trump gets a pass while people like you are willing to hand out fistfulls of passes to the guys you like.
3. I am no Trump fan. But I am going to vote for him for no other reason than it infuriates the left. The enemy of my enemy is my friend...
What fistful of passes am I handing out? And to whom? Long post, but not a word on the scenario I described that Trump is accused of if it had been attempted by Biden instead. Illegal electors is an attempt at election interference. It is a trial that should be held. If Trump is found innocent, okay. But American voters need to know.
American voters do know. They know that for 60+ years Donald Trump was a darling because he was part of the "in-club". Then, he had the temerity to believe that he could challenge the anointed successor to Black Jesus, Hillary Cunton. And, despite all the efforts to derail his campaign and the lies about Russia... he fucking won!
As I said, I am no fan of Trump. But I love how much the left hates him. As for the "passes" you hand out... from the Steele Dossier onward, I have no interest in anything anyone has to say about corruption, misinformation, etc. This was a failed hatchet job and the leftist media will never rest until they can do the only thing that matters... "get Trump."
This is not about justice. It is about retribution. Fine. I don't care. But don't delude yourself into thinking that getting Trump is a matter of justice. It isn't...
FWIW, if Tiffany Heynard ran for president, I'd vote for her...
Heynard and Blagoyevich in 2024!
I hate Oliver's daily Trump derangement snark. How about doing a serious article on TDS.
PEN, sadly, is saddled with a membership that cannot publish unless every written word is vetted by a group of Manhattan editors who have replaced intellectual diversity and literacy with a billet of checkboxes.
Every new novel must adhere to the same formula. PEN could go off the reservation and look for literacy outside of the big Manhattan publishing houses, but then they'd miss out the next Big Thing.
Instead of holding the award ceremony, PEN decided to put out a "Guide To Combating Campus Protest Mis/Disinformation". Of course, it links to such "trusted" sites as Politifact and BBC Verify - the latter seems to use Hamas itself as its ultimate arbiter of most "facts".
I used to read a lot of new fiction. I had to stop. The new stuff is so formulaic, so predictable in its relentless politics. Literary awards used to be about literature, so I use their short lists from decades past and have found quite a few great reads lately.
Kudos. I too am starved for a fresh content and have resorted to a best of the past reading list.
As do I; however, doing so is a manifestation of retreat into what Victor Davis Hanson calls the "monastery of the mind", a disengagement from the present world that is sad and abnormal. Subscribing to TFP is a way to counter that by occasionally finding content that is both intellectually nourishing and current, plus discovering common experience with others like yourself. :)
True. But I have hermit and contrarian tendencies so it is not as sad and abnormal for me. And I think you are right about TFP. I appreciate the camaraderie in the comments.
I do, too. TFP, and equally its comments section, is a welcome oasis in a desert of wanton stupidity and, dare I say it, evil.
Do you say the act of disengagement is sad and abnormal, or the present world itself?
Both, in different ways.
My experience as well. The most recent fiction book I actually managed to finish was Barbara Kingsolver's "Demon Copperhead"; but even that, a book about the ravages of growing up white-trash poor in modern opioid-saturated Appalachia, insisted on making its protagonist octaroon. Really? Poor whites don't even get one book in which to be a victim unalloyed to another acceptably-established victim category?
The formulaic is now also de rigueur in non-fiction as well. Two consecutive new historical works I've read have treated the topics of cannibalism and human sacrifice in indigenous cultures as morally relative, precluding any negative assessment. Both authors explicitly maintained that our admiration for the Maori and Aztec cultures should not be dimmed by their robust engagement in ceremonial bashing skulls and live evisceration of humans combined with cannibalism in the presence of bountiful non-human food. OK, and my niece thinks I'm barbaric for eating fish.
I know! Novels never have white characters other than 90 percent of the time. It's so unfair. Damn octaroons should know their place.
Isn't the point, though, that writers deemed acceptable to Manhattan editors use race, gender, sexuality and fealty to particular politics as a stead for old-fashioned character development?
There's no nuance in mainstream literature today. It's all virtue signalling and indoctrination into a specific, shallow worldview consisting of perpetrator and victim.
I write crime thrillers, a subset of the huge mystery field. The only thing that counts for my Manhattan editors is whether the story is well written, the characters well developed, the plot exciting, and that the book make money, with the last being Job One.
But genre literature is vast differently from Literature-with-a-capital L. I don't read much of the latter, so I couldn't tell you what those editors are looking for. You may well be correct that some mainstream Literature is shallow virtue-signaling, but I can't imagine all of it is.
Shane, I don't think my comment applies to you. You established yourself almost 20 years ago within, as you said, the crime thrillers genre (with a female police officer protagonist - women make up about 1/8 of police officers today). You've been published by various independent publishers, not the Big Five. I don't know your genre at all, no disrespect intended, but it looks like you've had a hard time with publishing since the initial female cop series. It's a difficult world.
At any rate, you've gone out there and written, and that's a big deal. So many of us say we have a book in there somewhere, but we don't even try. When I read what first-time authors are writing today and getting published by the Big Five, it's discouraging. It really seems like formula. For the superset of your genre, seemingly everything is a safe, humorless, lifeless replica of Gone Girl.
Agreed it doesn't apply to me, Jim. The hard time you mentioned I had was correct, but it was personal, not professional.
I was published by Kensington, the largest independent publisher in the United States, which back then was as big as some of the (then) Big Nine or Ten or whatever they were. Then my wife of 40 years died of metastatic cancer, followed within 18 months by her father and mother. Three quick-on deaths then all the legal and practical stuff in the aftermath knocked the creativity out of me for years.
Then came Covid, then my father became terminally ill in Arizona, so I moved from Chicago to help my mom and sisters (everyone who died was my wife's side) take care of him. I'm delighted I did so because Dad was a great and good man, but it knocked me off my perch again. He died last year. This year, my creativity is back and a new novel is with my agent getting ready for the sales market.
Is what's being published today largely formula? Absolutely. Part of that is because Big Publishing quit supporting authors who wrote anything but what Publishing considered a "surefire guaranteed blockbuster." Everyone looks to what that was, and now we see a lot of Jack Reacher, James Patterson, and Gone Girl clones. Nobody can do clones like the masters did the originals, but Publishing is obsessed with recreating the magic of That One Monster Breakout, so here we are.
That's the genre business, which is my wheelhouse. The "literary" side, where Folx paddle canoes to Outer Burpistan to discover their Authentic Truths of Selves in the Jungle of No Return while eating Tasty Anticolonial Food made from bugs, I don't bother with because it's largely unapproachable. Also, whiny.
I was only making the brief that within genre, white characters pretty much still rule the roost, partly because Publishing is comfortable with them because they sell well, partly because this nation is still majority white and thus so is the majority of the book buying sector. I don't think that will change any time soon.
Good talking with you, Jim, I hope this wasn't TMI.
Ooooh! Snark! How clever! So name an award-winning fiction book published in the last ten years that depicts whites favorably.
Clever enough for this, anyway.
Whites are depicted favorably in almost all books on the NYT bestseller list. James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux series. John Sandford's Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers series. Steve Berry's Cotton Malone series. Kristin Hannah's "The Women." My own "The Fury." (Mine most emphatically did not make the NYT list.)
Burke, Sandford, and Berry sell 60 million copies combined. Hannah is new to the New York Times fiction list and no whites were injured in the making of her story. In my book, whites are heroes and browns are villains or heroes, depending.
Don't worry, whites aren't going away any time soon, either in the halls of power or in fiction. We will continue to rule both.
The NYT list is not a literary award, which is the topic at hand. I don't bother with the mass market stuff you offer as evidence. Among my favorite fiction authors are Jhumpa Lahiri, Khaled Housseni, V.S. Naipal, Chang-rae Lee, Yann Martel, and Gabriel Marquez, none of whom are white. I neither appreciate nor deserve your insinuation that I believe that "damned octoroons should know their place". I merely take issue with award committees that are obsessed with the kind of virtue signaling that leads to the endless repetition of the same theme. Perhaps if you were a more talented author you wouldn't need to troll about in the comments section dropping your nasty little turds in other peoples' punch bowls.
"The NYT list is not a literary award, which is the topic at hand."
--It was not the topic at hand, because you didn't say "literary award." You said "award-winning." Write more clearly next time.
"I don't bother with the mass market stuff you offer as evidence."
--You're too stuffy to understand genre, so I'm not surprised.
"Among my favorite fiction authors are Jhumpa Lahiri, Khaled Housseni, V.S. Naipal, Chang-rae Lee, Yann Martel, and Gabriel Marquez, none of whom are white."
--If your favorites don't depict whites favorably, your issue is with them, not with "award committees." If they DO depict whites favorably, then why are you complaining?
"I neither appreciate nor deserve your insinuation that I believe that "damned octoroons should know their place"."
--You complained that Kingsolver ruined the purity of a poor white character by making the character octaroon. You earned far more than the little bit of snark I dished out.
"Perhaps if you were a more talented author you wouldn't need to troll about in the comments section dropping your nasty little turds in other peoples' punch bowls."
--I paid to be here same as you, so I will wander where my heart takes me to drop my little pearls.
I, too, have mostly given up on new fiction of the 'literate' variety. But there is lots of good new fiction that provides thoughtful settings, good character development, and introspective contemplation from authors who aren't part of the in crowd. Can be hard to find but it is out there anyway thanks to self-publication and the internet (at least one good thing from that cesspool anyway). And you are spot on about using the critical recommendations from the time before the mind-virus as an additional guide!
"I, too, have mostly given up on new fiction of the 'literate' variety. But there is lots of good new fiction that provides thoughtful settings, good character development, and introspective contemplation from authors who aren't part of the in crowd."
While true, I no longer have the time or patience to go though the drek to find The Good Stuff. Same with Music/Movies. Thee was a time when a song/album was in the top 10 there was a Good Chance I'd like it, If a Movie won Oscars it was worth watching. These days Not..So..Much.
But then I'm a Geezer.
The film 'American Fiction' encapsulates your post quite succinctly..
Loved "American Fiction" but, as I watched, I wistfully realized that the film could never be made with a white protagonist. No way.
I recommend (in addition to Ms Shriver) Julian Barnes, especially Noise of Time. It is a fictionalized account of the life of Dimitri Shostakovich in Stalin’s Russia. Really captures life in the conformist “paradise” that was the USSR
“I used to read a lot of new fiction. I had to stop. The new stuff is so formulaic, so predictable in its relentless politics.”
I wish I could like this a thousand times.
My book club has shifted to too many "woke" style books. That being said, one of my favorite books they did recommend was "Pachinko" by Min Jee Lee. It was so well written and quite an interesting story.
"PEN, sadly, is saddled with a membership that cannot publish unless every written word is vetted by a group of Manhattan editors who have replaced intellectual diversity and literacy with a billet of checkboxes."
I feel this! I work in publishing (though not trade publishing) and can't believe how, with all the "diversity" pushes in the industry, no one bothers to mention that the big 5 publishers' workforce is composed mostly of 20-something women in Manhattan.
Like, is this group really capable of choosing and publishing material that reflects the tastes of the entire country? Do you think that could influence the shrinking number of readers and declining book sales in the US?
No writer today wields her right of free speech more boldly or more incisively. Lionel Shriver's essays, speeches and novels never disappoint. I'd eagerly read her grocery lists, too.
A woman named Lionel?
Yes, indeed.
i resigned from PEN Malta - one of the organization's newest branches - last year when it officially adopted an explicitly anti-Israel position. That was well before 10/7, so I shudder to think what they're doing now.
No, Ms Shriver, writers aren't special (and I am a published one, in a small way). They comprise just as many bigots and mindless progressives as any other affinity group.
I suspect more cowardice than bigotry. Someone once pointed out that Galileo’s contemporaries understood astronomy as well as he did, but they had families to feed.
Actually the Galileo story is A lot more complicated than what The Narrative says. Part of his problem is he was something of A Jerk.
Why Was Galileo on Trial for Heresy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiFVF0vsQhM
Sep 18, 2023 #galileogalilei #science #geocentric
Why was Galileo put on trial for believing the sun was the center of our solar system (heliocentrism)? This video looks at Renaissance science, Copernicus, Galileo, and the Inquisition that put Galileo on trial.
I’m not sure it’s fair to call PEN America “an organization established for the defense of free speech of every sort” anymore, considering they’ve spent the last two years waging culture war against parents who are trying to read school library books aloud at school board meetings. Their definition of free speech is that anything a teacher or school librarian says is free speech and anyone who disagrees with what they say is fascist. In that sort of environment, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect them to jump on the side of the left wing cause of the day.
To be clear, I’m not taking a stand on Gaza or on which books should be in the school library. I’m just saying that if your organization decides to throw out its principles for a moment of partisan advantage, you reap what you sow.
ACLU is just as bad. One current ACLU spokesman said that burning Abigail Shrier’s book on transgenderism was “absolutely a hill [he] would die on.”
Shriver is a BRILLIANT writer and observer. While I do not agree with her on all issues I ALWAYS read anything that is produced when she puts PEN to paper ( couldn't resist that one).
Agree. She’s one of my heroes. It’s not for nothing that she has pride of place in my Covid book Blindsight Is 2020.
Ooooh, that IS a great one!
Lionel Schriver is one of my favorite artists since this whole thing has gone down. One of the other ones? Nick Cave. These guys know BS when they see it, and they have the courage to call it out. I find them very, very inspiring. Thanks for publishing this great opinion article.
Support independent literature! I wrote a novel inspired by the real-life underground movement to defy the British blockade and smuggle Jews into Mandate Palestine before, during, and after WW2 up to the rebirth of the state of Israel. Little did I know that I’d end up independently publishing it (since this isn’t the kind of thing that seems to interest the literary establishment these days) in the wake of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Or that Amazon would block me from advertising it due to a vague policy about “current events” (presumably, the war that Hamas started when terrorists invaded Israel and slaughtered over 1,200 Jews means that it would be offensive to advertise a novel about Jews rescuing Jews from the Shoah).
Anyway, at the risk of a shameless plug, it’s a pretty good read and I hope some FP readers will consider checking it out:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0CR8JTXDP/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=
I look forward to reading your article and thank you for trying to enlighten the masses, though most nowadays are confused devoid of logic.
I too appreciate your plug and look forward to novel. It’s disgraceful and demeaning to be shunned by the likes of Amazon or “The Literary Establishment”…. 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱
I ordered your book!
It's on my short list of books to read. What changed the minds at Amazon?
Brilliantly written! Should be used as an example of a certain style in every writing class! Thank you for making the effort.
I left a comment with the same! I don't always pay attention to who wrote which article, but I will definitely seek out Lionel in the future.
Considering that Jewish and Israeli writers are being noplatformed by literary magazines and publishing houses right now, I am not surprised by the overt antisemitism of these writers. They are emblematic of what is going on in publishing circles around the globe right now. Open and overt Jew hatred is on display.
The truth of the matter is that the "elites" in western society have lost the plot about what it means to live in a free society. They are no different than the Columbia students demanding humanitarian aid.
Also I remember when PEN writers condemned giving CharlieHebdo that award. It was shameful then and only goes to show the world how these PEN members have always been morally bankrupt.
Being an "intellectual," which most PEN members think they are, obviously doesn't mean that the person is actually intelligent. It just means they are filled with hubris, gile, and selfimportance. Not really a good look.
The "woke" mob are so used to getting their way by whining and complaining. It happened during MeToo, lockdowns, BLM, for every new trans flag, etc. This particular issue might be the first time large organizations are *sometimes* pushing back, and there's a bit of a fracture. Eventually, though, most organizations will end up capitulating to the pro-Hamas group, since the old guard (whether they be Zionist, pro-free-speech/anti-cancel-culture, or just against terrorism) are retiring, and the indoctrinated masses of millennial and younger "new elites" are moving in.
Ms. Shriver makes too much sense to be a talking head on MSM. Thank you TFP for adding her voice to your publication.
The American Fiction movie continues... A great article!
However, I am convinced that, with all these waves of woke movements of the last decade plus, orchestrated by foreign powers and their pawns in the US, we are at the point of no return. Welcome to USSR/China of the yesteryear! The new regime will solve all 'minor' issues - spoilt silly students, ethnic and gender grievances, homosexuality, Islam hatred of the entire non-Muslim world - quickly and decidedly. As they always do. They have plenty of people to spare in the pursuit. Old and proven method!
"American Fiction' came to my mind as well..
I feel like a frog in water as it heats up. Our wonderful country is infected by a virus of cowardice destroying individual common sense, courage and principal. The "Snowflakes" of yesterday, who complained of misgendering microaggressions, today, cover their faces, occupy university offices, and demand food from their pathetic, "woke," university leaders as they blindly support heinous terrorism of October 7th. Beware, the boiling point is close...
I have read Lionel Shriver's writings, and have been awed by her intellect, eloquence and moral compass. Now I am also awed by her courage to stand against these infantile Jew-hating brats and risk the ire of cowardly organizations such as PEN and the useful idiots who cheer on the death cult that would do to those same idiots what they did to thousands of innocent Israelis on October 7.
Of course PEN put its full weigh behind the “banning” of books in public school. Apparently there weren’t enough books actually banned to create a real stir so their creative writers changed the definition. Banned books are any book to which access is limited. So, if a book is deemed to be beyond the level of sexual exposure that is appropriate for a 3rd grader and is moved to a middle school library, that book is “banned” under PEN’s definition. My research shows that every “banned” book is still available in my state’s public libraries. But never underestimate the power of hysteria to a fundraising apparatus. It is certainly disheartening to see the level of hypocrisy exhibited by these organizations.