Oops, I Did It Again

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I’ve been reading a lot of best lists over at <a href=” http://www.crimefictionblog.com/”_blank”>Crime Fiction Dossier</a> and been saddened by the dearth of female names. So I did what I always <a href=” http://www.lauralippman.com/jan06.html”_blank”>do</a> when I worry about bias. I start with myself.

First, the good news: One of my three chosen titles for the Crime Fiction Dossier round-up was by a woman (Three Dog Life, by Abigail Thomas.) Bad news: I mangled that very title on my own website, when hitting the literary highlights of 2007. And, in examining that more detailed list, I found it a little light on female writers as well. What gives?

Well, there’s my memory. It’s been almost a year since S.J. Rozan released In This Rain. Megan Abbott’s The Song is You was also published early in the year, but I read it in 2006. I “liberated” Maxine Swann’s Flower Children while traveling in England; its absence from my physical shelves may explain its absence from my original list. Still I’m not sure how I overlooked Lionel Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World, although it, too, was relatively early in the year.

Then there are tricks of timing. Sujata Massey and Jan Burke did not publish novels in 2007; Touchstone, by Laurie King, hit stores this week. I put Alison Gaylin’s Trashed aside until I was finished with my own take on Hollywood, gobbling it up over the past two days.

There are lapses. A favorite literary writer’s latest (well-reviewed in most places) didn’t work for me, for extremely personal reasons. There are the tricks of categorization: Julia Sweeney is not, technically, a writer, yet I have enjoyed her three performance pieces (God Said Ha, The Family Way, Letting Go of God) as much as I have any thing I’ve read this year. In fact, I prefer Letting Go of God to God is Not Good, because Sweeney’s journey to atheism is so intensely personal and heartfelt.

There are oversights: If I am going to mention Michael Pollan, I should add Barbara Kingsolver and Julia Child. There are the logistics of packing. I have just started Bliss Broyard’s One Drop and Katherine Center’s The Bright Edge of Disaster; I met both writers at the Houston Chronicle Book and Author evening in October, but I was traveling with a carry-on and had no room for their books that weekend. (And, yes, I double- and triple-team books all the time.)

Meanwhile, the TBR pile calls, with sirens as varied as Theresa Schwegel, Alafair Burke, Karen Olson, Gillian Flynn, Julianna Baggott, Natalie Angier, Valerie Martin and Elizabeth McCracken. Then there’s the TBP pile: Cornelia Read, Denise Mina, Susan Sonnenberg, Jennifer Weiner.

What’s the point? I’m not sure, but I suppose I should have one. It’s not, as regulars here know, a case of sour grapes about best-of lists. Still, I brood endlessly about passages such as this one, from Entertainment Weekly’s (well-deserved) paean to Shriver: “Before it was co-opted and trivialized by chick lit, romantic love was a subject that writers from Flaubert to Tolstoy deemed worthy of artistic and moral scrutiny.” I don’t think “chick lit” has co-opted or trivialized anything. Instead, it’s a marketing term that has been co-opted by those who wish to trivialize books by women.

But I have found a powerful corrective in the regular Jezebel feature <a href=” http://jezebel.com/tag/fine-lines/”_blank”> Fine Lines</a> written by friend of TMP Lizzie Skurnick, who reminds us weekly that party dresses and pennies and pig bladders can be the stuff of great literature.

Tomorrow: The one-word New Year’s resolution challenge. I’ve got my list down to one all–purpose word. Can you?

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16 thoughts on “Oops, I Did It Again”

  1. Fair enough, Sandy.

    The thing I loved about Birthday is that it was counter-intuitively suspenseful. Early on, it becomes clear that there will be no single choice, much less a “right” one, yet I was fascinated by Irina’s contrasting paths. Neither life was perfect and I found myself making the case for first one, then the other. So perhaps the book works only if it engages the reader in that back-and-forth?

    I often tend to be the odd party out on books — there are many well-regarded literary novels that don’t work for me — so I am always a little reticent in defending the books I love.

    But I think Shriver is a writer who pushes herself to write very different books, so I don’t find it odd that you love “Kevin,” but not this one. I think that’s a risk she has decided to take.

  2. This year I really enjoyed Gayle Brandeis’ Self Storage and Jane Smiley’s Ten Days in the Hills and I really, really enjoyed the twist at the end of what’s-her-name’s What the Dead Know (plus the entire book).

    Think I’ll have to check out The Post Birthday World. Sounds intriguing!

  3. Thanks for the great link to the ”Jezebel” article. I don’t know why I don’t read that site more often. I always wanted to blow up a pig’s bladder and bat it around w/an imaginary sister. I also wanted to be one of Pa’s more, um, ”swarthy” rag pickers. Screw slumming Charlie.

    My one word resolution is the same every year. Sparkle.

  5. I have a few favorite reads of 2007 and two of them are by women! I chuckled at Peg’s way of saying What The Dead Know cuz that was one of mine too. I don’t say that because this is your blog Laura, I have mouthed this book of yours all over the place as being great! And it was as I was reading it even before the great ending that I knew it would be on my years best.

    The other one this year that blew me away was Heartsick by Chelsea Cain. I knew as I was reading it it would be one of my best of year.

    I’ve always been a rebel so that would be nothing new, and I really have never ever been able to successfully keep a new years resolution so I don’t really make them but if I were to then,

    My one word resolution: LIST

    See I always forget to write important things down so that means I’m likely to forget to do them whatever they are.

  7. Yes, Barbara, I would strongly recommend We Need to Talk About Kevin. There are so many issues around this book, especially about the possibility of evil. It’s a topic that I find myself uncomfortable with since I am a teacher and believe in the potential for goodness in incredibly unlikely places. But every once in a while there is a student who challenges that notion in weird ways…

    Thank you for your thoughtful comments around Shriver’s book, Laura. You’re right. I had a bit of “oh ya” moment when I read your ideas, not that I’m going to finish it or anything, but I do appreciate the alternate viewpoint.

    My one word resolution for this year: Today

    Happy New Year everyone. 2008 means a trip to Baltimore for Bouchercon in October. I firmly believe it will be a highligt.

  8. Okay, all I ask is that everyone re-post their one-word resolutions tomorrow, when I post mine.

    I introduced this topic at dinner tonight, with two 13-year-old boys. One said his was “Healthy.”

    The other said he could boil his resolution down to “Yes.” It’s funnier still if you realize we were at Fogo de Chao, which is basically all-you-can-eat meat (I had the salad bar) and the teen in question was their worst nightmare, a bottomless pit of a carnivore. My intestines hurt just watching him.

    I like my life, but I wouldn’t mind having the metabolism of a teenage boy, if only for a day.

  12. Laura, I’m in awe of your reading repertoire, and really in awe of your generosity and talent. Do you sense a “however”? However, I was able to finish Post Birthday World even though I have not stopped recommending We Need to Talk About Kevin to everyone I meet. On that book alone I should have loved her next one. What did you like about it?

  16. There are some other worthy books by women writers published this year. Origin, a mystery, by Diana Abu-Jaber is terrific on several levels. My sister who expects a lot from a book, loved it.

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