A while back, Dear Author authored another post on the “does the HEA constrain the romance genre” debate and while, as with any “hot topic”, it dwindles into debate and rebuttal based on personal perceptions of the romance genre. I hopped into the fray twice or so, particularly when someone mentioned their dislike over the lack of HEA couples just living together and having children–a trend that has grown considerably over the last ten years. I stated that I didn’t have a problem with it because in my own life, I’ve rarely seen marriage and have not seen the married state as something for a significant portion of the people in my surroundings to aspire to.
While it is a cliche to state that black women are less likely to marry than their non-black counterparts due to black men being in jail, unemployment and what not, it is true that marriage isn’t common in the black community–or a lasting marriage. Which is why it broke my heart to read an article where black children stated that” marriage is for white people.”
It is because of that mindset that I defend romance novels. How could you denigrate a genre that at its heart, promotes a healthy, long-lasting relationship when there are millions of children who don’t even know what that sort of relationship is like? The way I see it, despite the fantastical elements of the genre, it is a celebration of the type of relationship that most don’t ever experience in their life.
Not to say that I believe that marriage equals happiness (boy do I not!), but knowing the characters are committing themselves to one another in some form or fashion is my reading baggage.
March 21, 2008
I cringed when I heard of Kensington’s acquisition of Holloway House, an imprint ostensibly publishing “classic black crime fiction” (I guess works like ”My Life as a Pimp” is considered comparable to Dorothy Parker or Graham Greene these days). I acknowledge street lit as a legitimate genre of fiction but hasn’t the thug-life been glorified enough?
On the heels of the media’s absorption with the gritty realism of black life on the streets, and the millions street lit has raked in, comes a scandal on the James Frey scale: Margaret B. Jones, author of Love and Consequences, a memoir “about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs for the Bloods”, has admitted to fabricating the entire story!
And get this: she is a middle-class white woman!
Read the full story here.
What I find the saddest is the promotion and money splashed that womans way over her tale of woe–and the money and promotion splashed at other street-lit authors–from normally tight-fisted publishers confirms that the media just adores stories about downtrodden minorities. They just lap it up. I have to roll my eyes when I flip through my copies of Vogue and Elle and read the book reviews raving about memoirs and literary fiction detailing the struggle and strife of living life as a person of color, written by authors of color, yet an author–black,Jewish,Chinese,Sudanese,etc–just writing about life in general are overlooked. I guess this goes along with the love of raising awareness. haha
I just really find it interesting that the general non-ethnic populace prefers authors of color to exploit their “otherness” in literature, music and other media, while at the same time using that “otherness” as an excuse for not wanting to say, read a romance novel featuring black characters. It sometimes comes across to me that to know and accept that a black person, an Asian person, a Latino/a, etc person is a human, an individual, with their own desires and needs–just like them!–would upset the universe, or perhaps blow a hole in the ozone layer.
March 4, 2008
Isn’t that the most gorgeous and seductive cover! Jewel is the sequel to Jenkins’ 2nd published historical romance, Vivid, and features the passionate romance of Eli Grayson and Jewel Crowley.
March 3, 2008
Regardless of my feelings for the last novel in the Vampire Huntress Legends, I had to pick up the latest installment because the series is addictive!! So congrats to L.A. on winning the Essence Magazine “Storyteller of the Year” Award! Oh, and did you know she has another series debuting this spring? The totally kick-ass Crimson Moon novels, this series following werewolves instead of vampire huntresses. And you know Leslie is going to bring her own brand of flavor to our lycans! I haven’t been this excited about a novel in a long, long time.
March 2, 2008
