THE DOCTOR IS IN

(Cross-posted at Mama PhD)

One of my clients has written a book that is about to be published. It is an excellent book -- beautifully written, with interwtined themes that reverberate long after the narrative ends. The book was recently reviewed in a distinguished publication with an online presence, and my client sent me a link to the review. It was outstandingly positive, the sort of review that makes you want to run out and buy the book, and I congratulated her heartily.

"I don't want to seem ungrateful," she responded, "but look at this." She showed me another review from the same publication, of a male colleague's book. While my client's book had been described enthusiastically as an engaging, fast-moving read (which it is), her colleague's was discussed in respectful terms, lauded for its profundity and depth -- descriptors which also apply to my client's book.

"It's because he's male," she said. And a perusal of other positive reviews seemed to support that.

I haven't read all of those other books, of course, but unless women are writing only fun fluff and men are writing only deeply profound and important works, something is fishy here -- possibly the same phenomenon MJ Rose points to in her continuing tally of male vs. female representation in Oprah's Book Club (current tally: of the 19 book club titles Oprah has chosen since 2003, 17 are by men).

My client is an adjunct, with no interest in the tenure track. And the review will almost certainly drive sales. But it's hard not to wonder how many careers are made, or broken, on the basis of the "importance" of one's output, as decided by evaluators who may read through the filter of gender.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog , and she is a regular monthly panelist on Litopia After Dark. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com

Comments

[Susanne Dunlap]

At the risk of being a dissenting opinion (and actually, I'm very aware of gender bias in response to books, having written here in the past about the distinction between a "love story" -- code for written by a man-- and a "romance" -- code for meaningless froth written by a woman) I'd like to respond with what I know my agent would say about this post.

While there may indeed be a hidden code in the way reviewers speak about books, in this case, you could see "fast-paced and engaging" as meaning readers will buy it and read it, and "important and profound" as dull and hard work. Having no idea what books are being referred to, this is obviously only conjecture. But let's not forget that in the world of agents, a "literary novel" is code for "unsellable". Except when it's not, of course!

My larger point being that if you want a literary career, you have to write books that people want to read--and write them as well as you can. I think Amazon is littered with first novels by talented writers that are worthy literary efforts that didn't sell well enough for the publisher to risk a second book.