Novelist stops reviewing because of rampant misogyny in crime fiction: UPDATED
Novelist Clive Barker once called horror fiction the last refuge of the chauvinist. Jessica Mann might beg to differ. The British novelist, who also reviews crime fiction for the Literary Review, says that she has become so sickened by the “sadistic misogyny” in many crime novels that she’s giving up reviewing any more fiction.
Quoted in the Guardian, Mann insists that she doesn’t advocate censorship, but says she can no longer abide repeated descriptions of sadistic psychopaths doing increasingly horrific things to their female victims:
“Authors must be free to write and publishers to publish. But critics must be free to say they have had enough. So however many more outpourings of sadistic misogyny are crammed on to the bandwagon, no more of them will be reviewed by me,” said Mann, who has written her own bestselling series of crime novels and a non-fiction book about female crime writers.
She said that when a female corpse recently appeared on the jacket of a crime-writing colleague’s new book, the author pointed out to her publisher that the victim in the story was actually a man. Mann said the publisher replied: “Never mind that. Dead, brutalised women sell books, dead men don’t. Nor do dead children or geriatrics.”
Mann goes on to point out that many of the most “inventive” misogynistic crime novels are actually written by women (the Guardian article mentions Val McDermid, Tess Gerritsen, and Canada’s own Kathy Reichs, among others). McDermid claims that the genre has become so sensational because the market demands it:
“There has been a general desensitisation among readers, who are upping the ante by demanding ever more sensationalist and gratuitous plotlines,” she said. “But when women write about violence against women, it will almost inevitably be more terrifying because women grow up knowing that to be female is to be at risk of attack. We write about violence from the inside. Men, on the other hand, write about it from the outside.”
UPDATE (OCT. 27): The original article from the Guardian’s website, upon which this post was based, has been updated with the following notice:
This article was amended on Tuesday 27 October 2009. We previously said that one of the country’s leading crime writers and critics “is refusing to review new books” but that should have been “is refusing to review some violent new books.” This has been corrected.
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> “We write about violence from the inside. Men, on the other hand, write about it from the outside.”
Right. Men are never victims of violence…
Coincidentally (maybe), I was telling a friend yesterday that I would like to watch the new series of Trial and Retribution, a British television police procedural, for its many great qualities — including stylish camerawork, complex characters, and some ambiguity about who is actually the perpetrator. But after four episodes (two plotlines) my spouse and I gave up because we couldn’t stomach the grotesque violence. Realistic photographs of mutilated corpses are shown multiple times and the characters discuss the details of what was done to the victims ad nauseam. The first plot involved a girl child and the second a number of adult women and I leave the details of the violations to your imagination. Like most people, we’ve become desensitized over the years and we watch significantly more on-screen violence than I once used to. But I am not sure whether it is reader/watcher demand alone that is responsible for the escalation: it’s a complex social trend and the authors/producers must bear their share of responsibility. I applaud Jessica Mann for speaking out.
It’s an interesting point, and I am glad that Jessica Mann made it known. But giving up an influential perch because something enrages her is a little baffling to me. Most people might feel disenfranchised and wish they had a greater voice.
I never said and it is not the case that I’m giving up reviewing. What I did say is that I’ve had enough torture-porn – which is a very small subsection of crime fiction – and won’t review that any more.
Thank goodness someone is standing up to this misogynistic violence in the media. We’ve noticed that escalation in violence against women on the TV especially– all those CSI shows always begin with a mutilated (once beautiful) female corpse before cutting to the credits. I don’t know why people would want to spend their precious spare time reading or watching such violence.
Jessica Mann, thanks for your reply and for setting the record straight (i see The Guardian has done the same). Will you, however, continue to review crime fiction that uses violence not for misogynistic cadenzas but to make a point, as Val McDermid does in the same article? Making this distinction might prove helpful to those readers who agree with you.
Murray: yes, probably – except that I don’t want to read any more of what you call misogynistic cadenzas. How will I know which is which?
“How will I know which is which?”
Jessica: indeed, and why allow yourself to be tangled in the net of being placed on the defensive? If it cuts and hacks like a psychotic duck, it’s a psychotic duck. Just avoid the pond altogether.
But then why emphasize that torture-porn is a very small subsection of crime fiction? As Jennifer points out, it’s sure not a small subsection of the larger culture. It seems to me that some meta-cultural analysis might be fitting here. Presumably, some crime writers aren’t just out-goring each other just to keep up with the competition; they’re also doing it because they’re competing with TV and movies. The novel is itself on the defensive.
Which begs the question: why not write novels that do not require ever-increasing “cadenzas” of violence to grab readers’ attention, but also possess some of the virtues of TV and movie scripts — i.e., their speed, their lack of linguistic clutter and what I like to call “stuff writing”?
It seems to me that until novelists think seriously about the meta-cultural reality of fictional narrative as it exists in the world today — and then write novels that can stand shoulder to shoulder with other media while not sinking into the swamp of sensationalism, there will be a perpetual cycle of ultra-violence, ultra-violence squared and so on.
“entangled”
It is interesting to me that no one discussing this topic ever mentions the demonization of men rampant in crime fiction.
Crime fiction misogynist? How about obsessed with showing the unbounded evilness of men? The entire genre has become so stereotypical in its portrayal of men — as spineless wonders, docile lapdogs, or ravenging monsters — that practically the only way for any author to differentiate themselves from one another is to experiment with different permutations of violence.
The female characters of these books can be portrayed as strong, aggressive, even bitchy, and the reader is encouraged to applaud them for that. When men are portrayed the same way, they end up boxed in as chauvinistic, controlling bastards, best, at best, killers.
@Michelle Kerns: That’s right. Sexism is terrible in how it portrays both genders.
What you have described is sexism and how it relates to men. It’s time to name it that. Feminists have pointed this out time and time again. And you know what? They’re right.
It is only appropriate to address the effects of such stereotypes on both genders without trying to lessen the importance of discussing one or the other.