It's Started
I knew it was coming.
The path to writing Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven (Red Dress Ink) took three years. I had a new contract for three books, and it was second in line. I had started it, revisited it, restarted it, re-envisioned it entirely and overheauled it yet again. All in all, it took me two or three years to write, with other books intervening in between. And along the way it morphed.
The novel was always about a woman's battle with breast cancer, and her created family with her best friend, a gay man, who helps her through it. She has a romance with a fellow cancer patient, and he falls in love for the first time. The two main characters alternate narrating chapters, and since both of them are writers, they also alternate sharing their work--she as a columnist writing about her life as mom/woman/humorist; he shares his novel, which reveals why he has difficulty with relationships.
While the book has garnered advance praise, I have had friends forward two different reviews in which I offended the reviewers by writing about Michael's love affair. One suggested that if readers were conservative, they could "skip over" his parts, particularly when he falls in love. Another said that the violence in his embedded novel was "unnecessary" (it covers an incident in which he was assaulted for being gay).
No one feels the need in a book review to say, "Skip over the heterosexual parts." And his sharing about his assault is a fundamental part of who he is. Characters and human beings are the sum total of all their experiences--both good and bad. If I sat down and told the story of my own life, I could gloss over the bad stuff and give you the rose-colored version, but it really wouldn't give you a fair depiction of who I am or more importantly WHY I am.
So I knew the storm was coming. It's okay to have gay male sidekicks in chick lit, as long as they are "queen"-like, funny, the "Jack" character in "Will & Grace." But the subtle message of the reviews is don't have one who is handsome, complex, loves baseball and sports, and who is in a real flesh and blood love affair with complicated issues of fidelity, trust, and family.
However, I much prefer character rather than cariacature.
The path to writing Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven (Red Dress Ink) took three years. I had a new contract for three books, and it was second in line. I had started it, revisited it, restarted it, re-envisioned it entirely and overheauled it yet again. All in all, it took me two or three years to write, with other books intervening in between. And along the way it morphed.
The novel was always about a woman's battle with breast cancer, and her created family with her best friend, a gay man, who helps her through it. She has a romance with a fellow cancer patient, and he falls in love for the first time. The two main characters alternate narrating chapters, and since both of them are writers, they also alternate sharing their work--she as a columnist writing about her life as mom/woman/humorist; he shares his novel, which reveals why he has difficulty with relationships.
While the book has garnered advance praise, I have had friends forward two different reviews in which I offended the reviewers by writing about Michael's love affair. One suggested that if readers were conservative, they could "skip over" his parts, particularly when he falls in love. Another said that the violence in his embedded novel was "unnecessary" (it covers an incident in which he was assaulted for being gay).
No one feels the need in a book review to say, "Skip over the heterosexual parts." And his sharing about his assault is a fundamental part of who he is. Characters and human beings are the sum total of all their experiences--both good and bad. If I sat down and told the story of my own life, I could gloss over the bad stuff and give you the rose-colored version, but it really wouldn't give you a fair depiction of who I am or more importantly WHY I am.
So I knew the storm was coming. It's okay to have gay male sidekicks in chick lit, as long as they are "queen"-like, funny, the "Jack" character in "Will & Grace." But the subtle message of the reviews is don't have one who is handsome, complex, loves baseball and sports, and who is in a real flesh and blood love affair with complicated issues of fidelity, trust, and family.
However, I much prefer character rather than cariacature.
posted by Erica Orloff at 6:41 AM
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