Eighteen Acres, the debut novel by Nicolle Wallace, communications director under George W. Bush and campaign advisor for John McCain and Sarah Palin, approaches contemporary politics from the angle of women’s commercial fiction. The three main characters each carry different careers within the realm of US politics: Melanie Kingston, the White House chief of staff, Charlotte Kramer, America’s first female president, and Dale Smith, a White House correspondent.

Read the entire review on Bookslut.

The recent Jonathan Franzen-induced debacle of sexism in the world of literary criticism has sparked many responses. The Internet seems to vibrate with disputes pitting literary fiction against commercial fiction in a contemporary class war.

The Huffington Post interview given by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner contains many noteworthy observations about how books are sold, marketed, reviewed, and digested by the public. The type of prejudice Picoult and Weiner describe is real; women writers often get corralled into various sub-genres of literature such as commercial literature, chick lit, or pop fiction while male writers are often deemed “literary.” As someone who is dedicated to writing and understanding writing myself, I have often wondered why when I do read New York Times pieces highlighting strong literary fiction, the book is more times than not written by, as Weiner describes, “white guys living in Brooklyn or Manhattan, white guys who either have MFAs or teach at MFA programs.”

However, Picoult and Weiner make no mention of quality writing when commenting on what is deserving of literary criticism.

Picoult and Weiner assert that commercial fiction should be given more literary acknowledgment by major publications because it appeals to the masses. Picoult says:

Because historically the books that have persevered in our culture and in our memories and our hearts were not the literary fiction of the day, but the popular fiction of the day. Think about Jane Austen. Think about Charles Dickens. Think about Shakespeare. They were popular authors. They were writing for the masses.

Austen and Dickens absolutely had mass appeal, and of course, there will forever be the struggling high school sophomore who realizes amidst Great Expectations that Dickens got paid by the word. However, it should be noted what Dickens did with those words — that is, he formed some of the strongest, most resilient literature in the English language. To say that Shakespeare “persevered in our culture” because he wrote for the masses is to deny the enduring nature of his themes and the utter brilliance of his craft. That’s why he’s still remembered nearly 400 hundred years after his death and the only people who remember Jacqueline Susan 40 years later are those who first recall the biopic starring Bette Midler.

Collectively, we have now arrived at a time in literature, and even our culture, in which popularity and quality have completely diverged. There is the occasional overlap but only individual cases, especially in writing, to speak of. Popularity alone can no longer serve as a testament to strong, well-written, reflective literature. If it did, He’s Just Not That Into You could be considered a classic or “The Real Housewives” could be deemed a powerful drama. Popular identification with a work does not automatically affirm a piece as poignant or well-crafted.

What has yet to be said in this debate is that, regardless of sex or race, commercial books are simply not on par with literary fiction when it comes to producing provocative writing. The recognized style of commercial books is cheaper, less authentic, more formulaic, and more predictable, known for comfortable endings and neatly packaged characters that function more as cartoons than representations of actual people. When it comes down to fiction writing — solid, genuine fiction writing — that attempts to push boundaries and say something unique about our nature or the way we live, commercial lit doesn’t have that kind of reach. If it did, it would be called literary fiction.

Commercial books do not deserve serious critique because, generally, the writing does not merit it.

Clearly not everyone reads fiction looking for powerful imagery, subtle metaphor, innovative sentence structure, or complex characters. Many readers like to kick back on their vacations and train rides with something that can be more easily consumed and, for those reasons, commercial lit belongs on the designated shelves where it can be found, enjoyed, and celebrated by its consumers, not in The New York Times book review.

The question I feel that should be asked in the literary community in lieu of this sexist uproar is not why are commercial books not being reviewed seriously, but why are there so few prominent women writers of literary fiction?

Earlier this summer, I read a piece in The New York Times books section entitled “Bright Young Things.” It highlighted two new books by young writers Sloane Crosley and Emily Gould. Being a young female writer myself, I was delighted to see two women being featured in such a prominent way. Yet, I found both books to be rather lackluster and, in the end, I wondered why these two writers, who were being showcased by The New York Times as “bright young” female writers of today, were not as strong as I had hoped.

With the exception of a few female literary giants who are regulars in The New Yorker and The New York Times, it seems that even when a big publication does take note of a compelling female voice, she isn’t nearly as strong a writer as her male colleagues.

It concerns me to see endless profiles of “white guys living in Brooklyn or Manhattan,” who do tackle family, love, and heartbreak with startling prose while many women contemporaries communicate the same themes superficially.

Where is the new biting Lorrie Moore of this generation? The up-and-coming Sigrid Nunez of today? The next Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie? Another young Lydia Davis?

They’re certainly not on the “New Releases” table in Barnes & Noble nor are they being profiled in The New York Times. And although there is the slight possibility that this mythical Moore-Nunez hybrid is merely biding her time on the chick lit shelves, cashing in her royalty checks while she thinks up her own rendition of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, I highly doubt it.

Read this entry on The Huffington Post.

This is Not Chick Lit: Original Stories by America’s Best Women Writers, an anthology of short stories, opens with a resounding introduction by the book’s editor Elizabeth Merrick. Recalling the birth of the chick lit genre with the triumph of Bidget Jones’ Diary in 1996, Merrick recounts the commercial success that is the woman swinging the designer handbag down a busy metropolis street:

“Chick lit is the daughter of the romance novel and the stepsister of the fashion magazine. Details about race and class are almost always absent except, of course, for the protagonist’s relentless pursuit of Money, a Makeover, and Mr. Right.”

Merrick goes on to recall her own flirtation with chick lit in the mid-90s, pleased with the success of women writers. However, when the genre soon exploded to the point of eclipsing literary fiction, Merrick began to question the commercial aspect:

“The problem is, rather, that the chick lit deluge has helped to obscure the literary fiction being written by some of our country’s most gifted women — many of whom you’ve never even heard of. […] For every stock protagonist with an Hermès Birkin bag and a bead on an investment banker, there is a woman writer pushing the envelope of serious fiction with depth and humor. […] Where chick lit reduces the complexity of the human experience, literature increases our awareness of other perspectives and paths. […] Chick lit as a genre presents one very narrow representation of women’s lives, a vision that is ‘the literary equivalent of a tract-house development,’ as novelist Whitney Otto recently wrote in The New York Times.”

This Is Not Chick Lit is true to Merrick’s promise of multifariousness, providing a range of subject matter, distinctive voices, and literary styles by women writers. Unfortunately, this variation is also applicable to the quality of the stories, some more memorable than others. Aimee Bender’s “Two Days” and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Thing Around your Neck” are among the strongest, delivering compelling narration and reflective prose.

In “Two Days,” a nameless female narrator ponders her connection with a male suitor, examining the cultural fixation on “the one.” Her infatuation with her date eventually transitions into noticing minute details about their days together, ending in a wonderful literary ambiguity. In “The Thing Around Your Neck,” the Nigerian protagonist misses her family and culture after she moves to New England. When she begins dating a wealthy white student, her feelings about home and identity become even more complex.

Many of the other stories in the collection are somewhat lackluster in voice and, placed along side Bender and Adichie, mediocre. Although a bit disappointing given Merrick’s resonating forward, these short stories do provide a peek into some different styles of fiction writing and can perhaps serve as a jumping-off point from which to explore other writers. Alone, though, This Is Not Chick Lit is a lukewarm anthology with its heart in the right place.

To read more about Elizabeth Merrick, click here.

In completing Elizabeth Gilbert’s second nonfiction book, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, I am left with the startling realization that self-indulgent writing is becoming increasingly popular, particularly with women. The neurotic female protagonist perpetually on the hunt for a man and who finds solace in an array of Gucci purses has always been safely contained by the chick-lit genre, a shelf that can be ignored in a bookstore and clicked past in Amazon.

However, the success of Gilbert’s Eat, Pray Love, a book with many important and relevant themes (domestic discontent, divorce, identity, depression) reads like one long Seventeen magazine spread, the appropriate title perhaps being, “How I Traveled for an Entire Year and Still Managed to Only Obsess About Myself and My Problems.” Gilbert’s narration is charming for about twenty pages, but after seventy, a bit pitiful. How a thirty-plus-year-old woman manages to be so well-traveled and yet also so self-absorbed is surprising, but even while raising funds for a homeless Balinese woman and her child, she manages to pull it off. Gilbert’s undisciplined writing style, coupled with her self-serving search for God, trivializes divorce, depression, and the aforementioned issues, reducing them to fodder for a kitschy beach read marketed as a reflective memoir about women’s issues.

Gilbert’s second nonfiction book, Committed, also had potential to be extremely relevant to modern women. Considering a second marriage post-horrendous divorce is not only a trend but is quickly becoming the norm for many Americans. Because of the nature of her relationship with her then-fiancé and the circumstances presented in the book, Gilbert finds herself in position of having to truly analyze the concept of marriage from a modern perspective. Yet, despite assuring readers that she has been researching marriage for months on the other side of the world, she doesn’t cite many sources. As she often does in Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert expounds and wiseacres away with only a few statistical reports here and there to back up her points. Gilbert blindly interprets biblical marriage, makes sweeping cultural generalizations, and wanders from one assumption to the next without so much as a Wikipedia link to support her claims. She often concludes by transitioning feebly into examples from her own life, asserting herself as the credible source, asserting her own superficial voice as the authority.

I find it troubling that so many American women identify with a narration that is so preoccupied with self. By adopting a folksy, chatty girlfriend-type voice, Gilbert’s nonfiction devalues her subject matter and presents a feminine stereotype much like that of Shopoholics, The Devil Wears Prada, and Sex and the City: the neurotic woman with a hip career who prides herself on being modern.

Eat, Pray, Love is obviously not revered as a work of great literary merit, but to consider that so many American women are consuming these types of narcissistic narratives and identifying with them is perhaps even more alarming. Weakly-written nonfiction books such as Gilbert’s do very little when it comes to addressing the societal problems many women face, and will continue to face in their marriages and in their homes.

What can women possibly learn from this Elizabeth Gilbert effect of narrative narcissism coupled with poor research? If Gilbert can’t even be bothered to cite a source or research her material, what are women to gain?

Read this entry on The Huffington Post.

When I went this past fall to see Lorrie Moore read from A Gate at the Stairs, her much-anticipated first novel, the Barnes & Noble employee who introduced her made a bold assertion. “Obviously,” she proclaimed proudly from the podium, “literary fiction is not dead.” Indeed, the expansive reading room on the second floor was packed: Moore’s fans filled row upon row of chairs and crowded all additional standing space in anticipation of hearing the author read from her new, critically-acclaimed novel.

Yet despite this impressive turnout, Lorrie Moore is one of only a few literary fiction authors whose work you might find on a current “Bestsellers” table in a mainstream bookstore. Such books will surely be outnumbered by a string of memoirs with themes running the usual gamut from drug abuse to failed relationships to dysfunctional childhood, or, to truly break the bank, some amalgamation of the three. Skirting the other side of table is the usual assortment of chick lit, featuring familiar archetypes like the woman with severely frenzied spending habits and a love of Prada, or the single magazine writer who, for myriad reasons (body image, low self-esteem, take your pick), can’t seem to “snag the guy.”

These two genres, whose sales exploded to massive figures somewhere in the early 2000s, now overshadow literary fiction in the publishing market. Striking, then, is the lamentable quality of writing of some of the best-selling memoirs and chick lit books: Jane Green, Lauren Weisberger, and Elizabeth Gilbert clearly are not Lorrie Moore, nor are they trying to be. With books like I’m So Happy for You and Mr. Maybe being marketed––cynically so, some might argue––as kick-back reads to enjoy at the beach or on your daily commute, even the publishers do not overstate the caliber of the writing. But the sheer numbers in which readers flock to these easy reads greatly detracts from the sales of literary fiction, so much so that publishers are quickly beginning to view literary fiction as unprofitable.

Shortly after the Lorrie Moore reading, I was sitting in an editorial meeting for a magazine to which I contributed, throwing around ideas for the fall issue. Shyly, I raised my hand and suggested a piece on chick lit, proposing not a critique of the literary merits of the genre itself but a sociological look into what the popularity of these books says about contemporary women. The editor-in-chief smiled and, in his English accent, asked me what was so wrong with chick lit. “If even one of those books gets someone to pick up a book and read,” he laughed, “is that so bad?”

‘If even one of those [chick lit] books gets someone to pick up a book and read,’ he laughed, ‘is that so bad?’

When I returned to my desk about an hour later, I was still grappling with the question, and it stayed with me on my subway ride home. By the time I had collected my mail and collapsed onto my sofa, I had concluded that yes, it was bad. A flip through Jeff Herman’s Guide to Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents or the yearly Writer’s Market, which lists the current interests of the hundreds of publishing houses to which writers can send their work, reveals a startling trend: the margin for literary fiction has become smaller and smaller each year, with many houses choosing to dedicate only five to ten percent of their interest to the genre. Commercial fiction, meanwhile, has never done better.

In my own literary pursuits, I remember coming across a listing for a literary agency in New York. The head agent had compiled a detailed list of the types of projects that he accepted yearly. In big bold letters he had written, “NO LITERARY FICTION.” By now I’m accustomed to seeing such interdictions, but this particular agent had included his reasoning: “If you’re going to have little to nothing happen in a book, the writing has to be top notch.” He concluded that in his experience, most of the attempts at literary fiction that he received simply were not strong enough, and that that was why the genre was flailing.

He concluded that in his experience, most of the attempts at literary fiction that he received simply were not strong enough, and that that was why the genre was flailing.

If that agent’s observation is correct, and there just aren’t very many strong literary fiction writers, why is that?

When I was reading Sigrid Nunez’s fantastic novel A Feather on the Breath of God, I remember flipping back to the front of the book repeatedly to be certain that I was not reading a memoir. Written in the first person and drafted fiercely from Nunez’s own experience growing up as a mixed-race child in a Brooklyn housing project, A Feather on the Breath of God contains very little fiction per se. The narrator’s parents are of the same races as Nunez’s own parents, and her experiences are strikingly similar to those of the author. It seems that the only reason this book is labeled a work of fiction is that it was written in 1996, prior to the memoir boom.

If Nunez had deferred publication and strolled into her publisher’s office today with the same manuscript, would they still accept it as fiction, or would they attempt to coerce her into aligning herself completely with her narrator for the sake of sales? Would A Feather on the Breath of God: A Memoir sell more? Less? The notion that literary fiction must now fight for a place beside memoir and chick lit is troubling, as there don’t seem to be as many up-and-coming Lorrie Moores as there are Sophia Kinsellas. What will this swing away from quality fiction actually cost us in terms of the writing we choose to consume and participate in? And will we swing back?