Other writers I interviewed: Dave Eggers. Roddy Doyle. Sebastian Junger. Marion Winik.
This list could continue to grow. Being forgotten clearly means nothing as Doyle and Junger were too of my all-time favorites, and Marion and I have socialized since she moved to the area.
(Oh, and Jonathan Harr.)
You know what really bugs me, though? The list is overwhelmingly male. How did this happen? Am I sexist? Do male writers tour more often than females?
I need to go brood on this.
It could be, or just that the authors who allegedly merit more attention skew more towards men.
Case in point: Janet Maslin’s feature on new mysteries in Thursday’s NYT. ONE female writer, and it’s Linda Fairstein. A fine inclusion, but that’s it?
All right, I’ll take the bullet. I have no idea what the answer is, but somebody needs to ask the question.
Is it possible there’s a greater number of interesting male writers?
Having been raised gender-blind, I’d prefer the answer be “no,” but is it?
I think men might have toured disproportionately. Then again, let me think about my female “dream” interviews. (Wait, I forgot another one: Andrea Barrett! And she was a dream. Fresh from her NBA win and just wonderfully self-effacing and down-to-earth.) I would have gone out of my way to interview: Cathleen Schine, Sara Paretsky, Nora Ephron, Joanna Trollope, Elinor Lipman, Alice McDermott, Laurie Colwin (who died before I began doing features), Margaret Atwood, Jane Hamilton, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Alice Adams, Alison Lurie, Toni Morrison,Mary Gordon, Gail Godwin . . . but I never had the chance.
As with marketing, it comes down to lead titles and which authors a publishing house is pushing. I certainly didn’t say “yes” automatically and I sometimes pushed for interviews that weren’t offered (Anne Lamott was one of those). The _only_ reason I wrote about Elizabeth Arthur, who isn’t widely known, is because the publicist talked her up and the book was amazing.
I’ll return to my old tired argument. As a culture, we understand and accept that “male” concerns — stories about what it means to be a man in the 21st century — have implications for every one, male and female. It’s harder to persuade some readers — note I said, “some readers,” and I’m not breaking it down by gender because I don’t think it breaks down that way — that female-centric stories can be universal. What’s at stake when a man is unhappy? If the man is prone to violence, quite a bit. What’s at stake when a woman is unhappy? Her own life, maybe her children’s. Please understand, I’m not arguing for these positions, just trying to tease out what might be going on when male writers seem to own a disproportionate share of the slots assigned at the top of any genre.