Summer Reading List

It’s been quite a week! I made the 11-hour drive (each way) from western Massachusetts to Ohio to drop Audrey off at Denison University, where the cross country team is having preseason for a non-existent season. (They are a dedicated tribe, those distance runners.)

And, like I assume Frankie is and other are, I'm gearing up to teach in my virtual classroom starting next week. But I’ve managed to do some reading of late as well -- always a good thing for a writer!

My reading list this summer has been diverse and influences me on many levels.

The Mistress’s Daughter: A Memoir, by A.M. Homes

Dark Rooms, by Lili Anolik

On the Come Up, by Angie Thomas

This Tender Land, by William Kent Krueger

White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo

The Thief, by Fuminori Nakamura

The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien

Three of these books I consider mysteries: This Tender Land, The Thief, and Dark Rooms. A.M. Homes' memoir was a book I wanted to read because she's a friend. DiAngelo's book I read because I should. The crime books I read because that's just what I do and have done since I was a kid.

I’m not going to rate them. That’s not what this platform is for. But I enjoyed them all and am pleased with how much I was able to read this summer. Admittedly, about half of these were consumed via audio (and listened to twice).

If anyone has read any of these, I’d love to hear what you think of them.

Appropriation or Appreciation?

This week, I was told by an industry insider that a novel I recently finished was problematic because the multiple points of view I use to tell the story include a Korean female.

I use, I think, seven characters’ third-person limited POVs, including an African American teenage boy, a white teenage girl, a white woman in her 40s, a black man in his 20s, a white male in his 40s, another white male in his 50s (the co-protagonist), and the character in question, his Korean wife (the other co-protagonist).

I had a really great exchange with this insider, who is knowledgeable and thoughtful. It was eye-opening for a guy who just four years ago published the third Peyton Cote novel, a series told through Peyton’s eyes.

I’m a 50-year-old, white, male, who grew up upper-middle-class. Privileged beyond belief, admittedly. Only three years ago, an agent told me I needed a strong female character. I thought it would be a fun challenge: Could I write from a female POV convincingly? an opportunity, which, in itself, illustrates my privilege.

I’m 100% behind social-justice causes, including #OwnvoicesBooks. I’m also certain it’s easier for me to write a character who thinks, acts, speaks –– and is very much like –– me. I attempted to show the trials and tribulations I assume a female Asian woman might face in a male-dominated profession. And I see the problematic portion of the previous sentence –– “I assume” –– because, as a white male, I have the option of walking a mile in another’s shoes, when others do not. The problem for me is that I see no other way to write the book. The plot can’t be told from one POV (or I’m not smart enough to figure out how to do it). Five people who always read my work as I write indicated they knew the male lead (the American), at least in part, by his interactions with his Korean wife. It was a part of the book they all enjoyed.

I toss this conversation forward because it’s an important one, and I look forward to hearing from others.

Coincidently, I just read Angie Thomas’s fantastic On the Come Up and Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility. I recommend them both highly.

Knowing yourself

Rick’s post and Thomas’s post each got me thinking about the nitty-gritty, the hows and whys, of writing.

Hemingway said somewhere that one doesn’t become a better writer, only a better editor. Like most of what Hemingway said on the topic, I agree. For me, improvement has always been tied to knowing myself –– knowing my strengths and weaknesses and using that knowledge and self-awareness to evolve.

Character and dialogue are things I do best. Those aspects of writing fiction have always come easily. Plot, not so much. Plot I have to work at. I write in a Google document, and the margins are filled with notes and comments –– reminders about who knows what, who said what, who did what, and what needs to happen in the course of the story or book. Keeping track of the threads of the spider web has never been as easy.

And, as Rick mentioned, over-writing is always an issue. I think this is a common problem most of us battle. How much is too much? Is the line of dialogue clear? Do I need one more brushstroke here? I talk about this with my students often, telling them, Overwriting happens when you’re not confident in what you’ve conveyed. And I am quick to admit (to them and to you) that I’m as guilty as anyone.

All of which points us to the importance of revision and, as Hemingway would say, always working to become your own best editor.

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As an aside, summer is off to a nice start. My reading list consists of Angie Thomas’s On the Come Up, William Kent Krueger’s A Tender Place, and I need to reread Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried to teach it in the fall. My oldest, Delaney, graduated from college (we held our own ceremony), and is moving to New York City to start her first job. She recruited a cheap painter...