Despertar

i'd probably deserve it

There exists, in my mind, a very clear segregation between "good" books and "shit" books.

"Good" books are always intrinsically good, even when they are very bad. Ernest Hemingway's Short Stories was a good book, even though actually reading it was a completely unenjoyable experience. Zadie Smith's novels are good books. Any book that has ever been standardized to any high school or college's English curriculum is probably a good book, et cetera. The Poisonwood Bible is a good book because you can't really know WHO you are till you've read it.

"Shit" books are bad by definition, even when they are very good. (You can tell by the reaction you get when you talk about them: You cannot get away with telling any learned person Flowers in the Attic is your favorite novel.) Shit books are easily recognizable by their covers because, I honestly believe, they are designed to make reading accessible to non-readers. Emily Giffin's books, of which I could only stomach Baby-Proof, are shit books coated in pastel with bas-relief girly paraphernalia on the front. You don't even have to read past the lurid Passionsesque cover to see that any Twilight book is a bad book. Shit books do not teach us anything, but they do allow everyone to experience the high achievement of actually reading every page of a book.

(This line gets blurred, actually, with stuff like Jodi Picoult's work, which, I think, perfectly straddles the line between good and shit. I have read four of her nine thousand novels and have been, in every case, continuously entertained enough to propel myself toward their conclusions, but at the same time reminded that being that prolific--three novels in a year, seriously?--usually just means you're not really getting the job done. Also, the covers, to prove my earlier point, always look like soap opera tableaux.)

But there's something out there that's even worse than shit, and that is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_fiction

With no disrespect to any author who believes she has something to say to the masses, I seriously wish this hellacious genre would just die. The problem is, and I promise I'm not blaming Whitey for this, no one in the Borders-shelving career field seems to be smart enough to make the distinction between good books by black authors and shit books by black authors. Yes, Toni Morrison gets shelved with mainstream literature, but everyone else--Alice Walker, Nikki Giovanni and Omar Tyree alike, only Tyree being a shit author--gets thrown together on the Urban Fiction shelf. (Zadie Smith is an exception, because although she is black, she is also mixed-race, beautiful and English.)

Sample covers: http://negroartist.com/Omar%20Tyree%20Literature/Flyy%20girl.jpg http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n26/n134313.jpg

I read Flyy Girl. I also read something completely inexplicable, by an author whose name I now forget, called Marry Your Baby's Daddy. But I have read a lot of things.

By contrast, I know some people who only buy books from the Urban Fiction section. Either they blame Whitey for America and they show their allegiance by only supporting black authors, or they believe they can only relate to the material in urban fiction books. Either way, their patronage seems to be enough to keep that market afloat, which takes away the incentive for mediocre authors to invest in better editors, English classes, varied life perspectives or spellcheck. It's the most frustrating thing ever and I feel sick every time I walk into a bookstore just thinking about it.

*

But actually, none of that is why I hate urban fiction so much as a genre. The real reason has more to do with this book club meeting my mom had at her house yesterday, featuring an urban fiction novel written by a friend of one of the club members. That member invited her friend, the author, to come sit in on the discussion, so my mom invited me to come home and listen in, knowing I'd find it interesting. (I love listening to authors talk about their work, because I know how nothing compares to the feeling of talking about your work with genuinely interested people.)

Before I came home, I read a few pages of the novel, and identified it quickly as a shit book. And not the good kind, either. To whatever extent I can safely call someone's art crap, this was crap, and poorly edited crap, at that. I called my mom and asked what questions I would possibly have to ask of this author.

"Oh, I don't know," she said. "I didn't finish the book; I only got to maybe the fiftieth page because it was total garbage." (French pronunciation.) "But luckily, I'm the hostess, so I get to keep excusing myself to the kitchen all day anyway."

So I came home, not to hear the discussion, but to help my mom cook and entertain and such, and while the other ladies sat in the basement and discussed the shit book, Mom and I stood together at the stove and snickered quietly over how the author was mispronouncing her own protagonist's name. (If you don't believe me, and insist that an author must know how to pronounce her own protagonist's name, just let me know and I'd be glad to prove you wrong by email.)

*

I really, really, really want to publish a novel someday. But my greatest fear, of which I am more fearful than I am of never getting published at all, is that some publisher will read my manuscript, and, either because of my inclusion of black characters or by way of some other "tell" I can't self-identify, decide it belongs in the Urban Fiction section, where no white or Asian or elitist people will ever see it.

And if that did happen, I'd probably deserve it, for calling that woman's book crap.