OK, we’ve had some time to digest the fact that half the country doesn’t care about a President-elect’s sexual rapacity, his kooky economic ideas, his gibbering speech style, his racism and misogyny, and the likelihood he’s kissing up to one of our chief enemies in the world, as much as they care about the stock market going up and Brown people going away. If you’re thunderstruck by how badly you misread so many of your fellow citizens, join the club.
I’m going to take a long dangerous step into the quicksand—I don’t love talking politics—and ask the question that I hope is on everyone’s mind. I know it’s on mine. What the hell do we do now? Because here we are:
“. . .America is sliding back into the Middle Ages, as white supremacy exerts itself not only over Black bodies, but over women’s bodies too. False narratives rooted in antiquated religiosity and bigoted ideas from hundreds of years ago are used to justify this, and find willing audiences and believers.” Salman Rushdie (Knife)
So: can crime fiction matter in the current state? Are we only entertainers? Or is there space for us to resist things we don’t believe in? Is there still a relevance for us? Or are we still bound by our conventions to (only) “tell a good story,” to fill time for our readers without challenging them?
Fiction has a long history of social commentary. Think Dickens exposing child labor in London, Steinbeck the plight of migrant workers, Upton Sinclair the perils of letting the profit motive drive your food system.
I’d like to read more books like Razorblade Tears (Sean Cosby)
, where two fathers, one black and one white, team up to avenge the murders of their gay sons. It deals directly, but through character and story, with racism and anti gay violence. A book like this gives me hope we can find more ways to resist. C.J. Box, whose books treat political and cultural issues in the American West, is another writer I see working this way.
We need to write these books because the media we’ve relied on in the past, the major metropolitan newspapers, the television and cable pundits, have failed us utterly. Like Upton Sinclair’s meatpackers, they have abandoned all standards of honesty for the sake of profit and relevance. I want more writers and more books that grapple with the factual world, fewer fancies where the violence is cartoonish and the good guys mostly win.
Less fluff, less diversion, more meat. I know these writers are out there. Let’s find them and celebrate them. I’d venture to say crime fiction has a larger audience than what the gatekeepers call “literary” fiction. Drop your suggestions in the comments, please. Help a demoralized writer out.
I can’t but help skirt the edges of political unrest with my writing. The most recent, Mayhem, deals with a corrupt supreme court judge. The upcoming April release is a billionaire playboy running for president who must be stopped. Next fall is a 1950s Civil Rights PI mystery set in Raleigh, NC. We all have a responsibility.
Excellent and encouraging perspective.
Absolutely right, Dick. It takes me a good portion of each day just to figure out how I’m feeling. Writing seems frozen, similar to the creativity paralysis I experienced for almost nine month after 9/11. The scariest thought running through my head is that the system of checks and balances we’ve always been able to rely on (legislative, judicial, executive branches), has turned into a cast iron sewer pipe, depositing a stream of filth into the river known as the United States. I keep waiting to discover a reason to hope, but they’re like unicorns in the middle of hunting season.
This is not a political site. The majority has spoken. STOP THIS DRIBBLE.
You mean drivel. Unless you mean “Shut up and dribble,” the sneering disparagement of athletes who take political stands. In any event, we are still free to express our personal beliefs, as Dick has chosen to do. For now.
Writers are facing increasing scrutiny, which has a chilling effect on all creativity.
And the “majority” once thought slavery was A-OK. Ditto concentration camps. Good thing somebody thought to speak up.
Thanks, Maggie. I do wish it were easier for people who wind up posting as Anonymous to have the courage to put their names to what they say. (As did Julianne below),
Julianne Spreng here. Being told to shut up and carry on because we won and you didn’t is NOT okay. The winners barely eked out a victory over the losers so have no massive mandate to steamroll anything they choose. Writers HAVE opinions. That’s why they write what they do even if it seems to be just a fictional story. Dick, John, Matt, Sandra, Maggie, and all the rest, keep speaking out. When our voices are silenced we have lost everything.
Thanks, Julianne. I appreciate your being willing to associate your name with your comments, especially. So much of what passes for discourse on social media comes from people without that basic courage. Cheers . .
Of course, both of my (Dick’s) replies above showed as Anonymous . . . 😉
You make a good point, but there can be a good deal of social commentary in lighter mysteries, too. I didn’t set out to add a “message” to the Liss MacCrimmon books I wrote during the first Trump presidency, but somehow they ended up bringing up all sorts of social issues and, strangely, tended to feature villains who were experts at gaslighting. Kathy/Kaitlyn