Book reviewer quits over 'increasing sexist violence'

[John McFetridge]

By Amy Willis
Published: 2:59PM GMT 25 Oct 2009 in The Telegraph UK.

The author claims she is is fed up with increasing levels of "sadistic misogyny" in crime fiction and says authors are simply jumping on the bandwagon to get a bestseller.

"Each psychopath is more sadistic than the last and his victims' sufferings are described in detail that becomes ever more explicit as young women are imprisoned, bound, eaten, starved, suffocated, stabbed, boiled or burned alive," she told the Observer.

Authors must be free to write and publishers to publish. But critics must be free to say when they have had enough. So however many more outpourings of sadistic misogyny are crammed on to the bandwagon, no more will be reviewed by me," she added.

And the most disturbing plots are by female authors, she says.

"The trend cannot be attributed to an anti-feminist backlash because the most inventive fiction of this kind is written by women," she claims.

Natasha Cooper, former chair of the Crime Writer' Association, agrees with Ms Mann. She says women do this so they are taken seriously as authors.

"There is a general feeling that women writers are less important than male writers and what can save and propel them on to the bestseller list is if they produce at least one novel with very graphic violence in it to establish their credibility and prove they are not girly," she said.

The British market for crime fiction is worth more than £116m a year, with almost 21 million books sold.

Women account for more than 60 per cent of the readership with females over 55 the most avid readers.

[Steve Mosby]

For me, ' the 'free speech' line doesn't end anywhere in the vicinity of fictional work. And you're creating straw men here. It is okay to kill a fictional kid in a fictional work - obviously, surely? Because it's not a real child. Write whatever you want. There's no line here, and nor should there ever be. When you say it's not okay to kill a kid in a book, you're talking purely for yourself.

"For female characters, this line is crossed much more easily and acceptably than for male characters. The public will read about a female rape and not be much disturbed, but a child or male rape makes people shudder."

Speak for yourself. Really. And if male rape made you shudder more than female - for some bizarre reason - then you wouldn't be complaining about the prevalence of violence against women in fiction, would you? Why do you assume violence against women is enjoyable for readers other than you? Can't it be that violence against women is seen as more horrific than violence against men, especially sexually, and that that's why it forms the focus of so much crime fiction?

[I. J. Parker]

Ah, no. Women are more obvious targets. There may also be a perverse pleasure among female readers to fantasize about rapes.

But the most horrific scenes of violence I witnessed were what was done to men in Val McDermid's book.

[Donna Moore]

Minerva said: "The public will read about a female rape and not be much disturbed, but a child or male rape makes people shudder."

Well, THIS bit of 'the public' is disturbed when I read about anyone being raped.

And yes, people should be free to write about whatever they want, just as we are free to read about anything we want. I personally choose not to read anything with sleuths who embroider or knit while soving a crime.

I enjoy good books - plain and simple.

[Jon Loomis]

Why is it not OK to kill a kid but OK to cut off a woman's privates, rape her, mangle her, refer to her as sub-human, and throw her body in the garbage?

A perfectly reasonable point. I actually think there are legitimate reasons for writers of fiction to fictionally kill off fictional kids, though as a parent I now find such scenes particularly disturbing (even though I've written them in flashbacks, to establish backstory). I also fictionally killed a woman character--a fairly despicable one--by fictionally nailing her to a fictional building with a fictional nail-gun. In my next book, should there be one, I plan to fictionally kill off several fictional harbor seals. I'm not interested in writing about rape or female mutilation, although I have considered doing a "cold case" story about the infamous Tony "chop-chop" Costa rape/dismemberment killings that happened in Truro, MA in the early '70s.

I've forgotten what my point is, except that in fiction, everything ought to be fair game. Everything. At the same time, much depends on the treatment, and the writer's motivations. You don't want to trade too much in clichés, and there's certainly nothing fresh or illuminating at this point in even the most luridly violent scenes (we're less shocked by stories of female rape, etc., because we're so inundated by them, I think). At the same time you don't want to be fettered by artificial Rules Of Niceness, or whatever: I'm okay with the idea that my books may offend certain people--but there's no excuse for cluelessness. One ought to be aware of what one's Id is doing on the page, at the same time that we're handing it the chainsaw and telling it to go have fun.

[Donna Carrick]

Jon, you're both funny & wise, as Dana says! Hee hee. Minerva's got a great point about where the lines of acceptability are or are not drawn in society. Just to clarify, of course I've read books where children are hurt or killed. It's perfectly acceptable to write them. But extreme violence against anyone of the human, dog or other variety goes against my own peace-loving, friendly ole nature, so it's difficult for me to read, that's all I meant.

That and exploitation of real children. I'll never accept child abuse or child porn on any level. Outside of that, I really don't want to encourage sensorship in our industry. I'd rather offer up some tasteful crimewriting alternatives and hope that public tastes change.

[I. J. Parker]

Good for you, Minerva. I'm with you.

[Lindy Cameron]

Methinks that Jon Loomis is a very sensible and insightful man / writer / person.

[Jon Loomis]

Loomis? You're kidding, right?

[Daniel Hatadi]

She must be talking about the Other One. ;P

[Jon Loomis]

Right-o; I forgot there were two of me.

[Lindy Cameron]

oh ha

[Mike Dennis]

We as crime fiction writers are free to write about anything we please. If someone wants to write about child rape and animal abuse, he or she is free to do so. Who's going to stop him/her? The government? Some newly-created Writers Gestapo?

The marketplace will see to it that none of that stuff gets out there. Everyone has said how repulsive those topics are, and I agree. I'm pretty certain that most of the reading public agrees with that sentiment, too. If writers of such material try to self-publish, which is their right, then the reading public has the right to spit on it. In fact, I daresay that's already happened, since that kind of trash is, from where I stand, nonexistent in the marketplace.

As someone said in an earlier comment, this is crime fiction, meaning "crime", as in often-unpleasant violations of the law, and "fiction", as in all made-up.

I mentioned this before, and I'll say it here. Quit looking for someone to blame. We live in a free society. This stuff is allowed. If they can shut down child-rape stories (and there are more than a few hints here of "doing something about" serial killer novels), pretty soon, they'll be coming after your PI novels and cozies. And when that happens, they're not going to listen to you as you cry, "Oh, I only meant we should get rid of the bad stuff. Not my stuff!" Your books will go straight into the flames, right along with the rest of it, as they lead you away.