YA & Romance Have True Value

"One thing you who had a secure or happy childhood should understand about those of us who did not, we who control our feelings, who avoid conflicts at all costs or seem to seek them, who are hypersensitive, self-critical, compulsive, workaholic, and above all survivors, we're not that way from perversity. And we cannot just relax and let it go. We've learned to cope in ways you never had to."

"People talk-they sneer at escapism. Well, there are those of us who need it."

--Piers Anthony, sci-fi and fantasy author

Recently Ruth Graham wrote an article (featured in Slate magazine) that was titled: AGAINST YA. It's subtitled: Adults should read what they want. But you should feel embarrassed if what you're reading was written for children. Not long before that William Giraldi took on romance novels in the New Republic chastising women for reading them. Specifically he took on FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, but out of apparent concern that readers might be tempted to mistake his article as legitimate criticism of one book, he clarifies his position by stating that, "romance novels, like racists, tend to be the same wherever you turn."

In a smartly written rebuttal featured in the Washington Post, Alyssa Rosenberg points out that this demonstrates Giraldi's, "stunning lack of familiarity with both racists and romance novels." I agree, but I find his unfamiliarity to be both understandable and expected. After all, it's unlikely that Giraldi, who is both white and a man, would have had a lot of exposure to the different kinds of racism in the world and the books he feels the need to lambast were most definitely not written for people who have penises. 

And that brings me to the point of this post. As Rosenberg notes, it is easy to pick apart Graham's and Giraldi's arguments point by point. Graham's insistence that YA doesn't explore the complicated subjects that adult fiction explores can be disproven by anyone who has read Julie Gardner Berry's THE TRUTH THAT IS ME, Walter Dean Myer's MONSTER or Markus Zusak's THE BOOK THIEF. It's just as easy to point out that while THE FAULT IN OUR STARS is a romance novel at heart, it is very different from Kresley Cole's THE PROFESSIONAL or that FIFTY SHADES has little in common with Nicholas Spark's THE NOTEBOOK.  But the thing that I've begun to notice about all these supposed conscientious-objectors-of-genre-fiction is that they are the ones who seem to have a certain amount of commonality (Graham and Giraldi are just the latest of a long list of romance/chick-lit naysayers). For instance, more often than not they are college educated white men and women from upper-middle class backgrounds.  I have nothing against this particular demographic of people and I truly believe in the value of a college education.  I'm just saying that these are not individuals who were raised on food-stamps.  They were not teenage mothers and while I'm sure they've suffered their fair share of heartache and disappointment there's little to suggest that they had to deal with emotional or physical abuse or feelings of intense isolation. Their husbands and wives were not sent off to Afghanistan to fight in a brutal and sometimes forgotten war. They're not working two minimum wage jobs just to pay their family's rent. I do not believe that the most vocal of these critics have lost a child to cancer or a brother in a shooting or a father to prison. I think it is unlikely that their high school peers suggested that they should die because they were gay or fat or deemed some other kind of misfit.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think these are people who have had to learn to cope with the challenges, dangers and loneliness that Piers Anthony is describing in the quote I posted at the top of the page.

I started reading and writing escapist fiction when I was going through a particularly painful, scary and financially devastating divorce. When I was afraid I was going to lose my home, when my happy little world became a more dangerous and frightening place, I discovered the books of Janet Evanovich. They made me laugh. They made me happy. That has value.  

And for those who call the writers of this kind of fiction hacks...well, if you don't think that it takes talent, work and skill to elicit a laugh from someone who is feeling lost, scared or depressed  (not a knowing chuckle or a sardonic smile, but an honest to God, cheerful, infectious laugh) then you have never been truly lost, scared or depressed.

Obviously not everyone who reads escapist fiction is in emotional pain nor is everyone who reads literary fiction happy. But I have yet to meet a romance reader who has lived a cushy, privileged life and I wouldn't recommend Sartre's No Exit to someone who is feeling trapped. Just as boys who are bullied like to bury themselves in graphic novels and sci-fi, girls who feel alone or picked on immerse themselves in romance and fantasy. Just as men who have had a hard week like to live vicariously through the athletes they cheer, women who have been exhausted by work and child rearing like to live vicariously through the characters they read.

I think it's wonderful that Graham and Giraldi are reading J.M. Ledgard, Adam Bede, Charles Dickens and Catullus. With the exception of Ledgard (whom I plan on reading) I too have read the works of all these authors/poets and I encourage others to do so.  Furthermore I encourage you to read Donna Tartt and Maya Angelou, Brian Greene and Fredrick Douglass.  And perhaps I'm an unlikely defender of escapism since so many have noted that my romance titles feature themes and subject matters that are a little darker and edgier than what is typical for the genre. But I still love my light-hearted and purely escapist Sophie books and I hope to write more of them. As with my reading, I like to explore different tones and genres in my writing. Yes, I am often in in the mood for edgy, gut-wrenching and dark themes and characters with complicated story lines and heavy doses of moral ambiguity. But there have also been times when I desperately needed to escape an edgy, dark reality, not further immerse myself in it. Like my readers, I see the real value in the books these critics think should be beneath us. These are novels that can give us a sense of hope when we need it most. They make us smile after we've spent the day crying. They relax us when anxiety threatens to rob us of our sanity. And yes, they do frequently make us think by slipping in words of wisdom and unique perspectives without beating us over the head with tragedy, injustice and pain.

If you need to read a book in order to appreciate the hardship and the uncertainty of life, to get in the heads of unstable and morally reprehensible people then I can only encourage you to do so. But please keep in mind, there are some of us who, at least at times, need to read a book to appreciate the joy that life can offer and to be reminded that we can still strive for a happy ending. 

--Kyra