Buzz, Balls & Hype : Tess Gerritsen responds to On Maginalizing

Tess Gerritsen wrote me in reponse to Guest blogger T.Myers's essay.

T.Myer's raises an interesting point:

"The hurdles have always been higher for black writers. We're supposed to be interested in a very limited palette of subjects: race, urban problems, slavery and its legacy -- in short, The Struggle. The pressure to conform comes not only from the white majority, but from within the black community. Believe me, you score no points with most black folks by creating a purely abstract painting or writing a book which makes no reference to black social issues. I've navigated those waters, and they aren't hospitable."

That's something we non-white authors don't talk about enough: that sometimes it's members of our OWN RACE who want to marginalize our work.

A few years ago, I was invited to speak at the Association of Asian American Journalists. I told them, during the presentation, that I had made a conscious decision as a novelist to feature mainstream characters and mainstream themes in my books, and not limit myself to Asian American plots. While I do use Asian characters, they are more likely to be secondary characters. As I explained it to the audience, I'm a working writer, and I want to sell to the largest audience possible. I have a mortgage to pay and kids to send to college and the bottom line for me is ... where's the money? Also, I had been advised, by an editor whom I trusted, that marketing research within their publishing house revealed that books with Asian-American heroes or heroines did not sell nearly as well as mainstream characters.

I had no idea that my comments would amount to self-immolation in that crowd. Audience members were visibly angry as they rose and said, essentially, that I was an Asian Uncle Tom. That I had a responsibility to my race to write about Asians. And why the hell was I writing under the name "Gerritsen" (my legal, married name) and not under my Chinese name? Clearly, I must be ashamed of my race.

They didn't accept my choices, which were purely practical. My goal was to reach the widest audience and become a bestselling author, which indeed I was -- and the reason I got invited to the convention in the first place. The very fact of my success, you would think, would make them listen and take notes. All it did was get them angry.

Even after I got home, the criticism didn't end. I continued to read online grousing about my status as an Uncle Tom. "Asian Americans should strive for success without resorting to the disgusting strategies that Tess Gerritsen used." And of course, they were never, ever going to buy any of my books.

No wonder so few Asian Americans make it onto the bestseller lists. We're too busy shooting each other down.

The lesson here? You can't count on your own race to applaud your success. You can't count on anyone, really, except your friends and loved ones and your literary agent. My advice? Trust your own instincts, and write the book you want to write. And stand behind it. (Unless, of course, it's a fake memoir.) Your book is your baby, and you should be proud of it.

No matter what anyone else says.

Buzz, Balls & Hype

Because there are over 750,000 self-pubbed and 250,000 books published a year and they won't all get reviews in the NYTBR. Authored by M.J. Rose

February 27, 2006

Tess Gerritsen responds to On Maginalizing

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