Opinion: An Open Letter to a Bookish Charity

Dear [REDACTED],

I discovered you in my quest to find new homes for some of my books, and thought highly of your mission to distribute book to people on the streets across Australia. At first, it seemed we would be a perfect fit. You only wanted books in good condition; I already had a 'to go back to the Salvation Army store' pile and a 'good quality' pile, so I'd give the quality stuff to you. Except that, on further research, I realised you wouldn't want them, because, while my pile has historical fiction, non-fiction and speculative fiction, it also contains many romance and chick-lit novels. GASP!

I know that this is not going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, because "out of respect for your customers", you do not accept romance and chick-lit, or other inappropriate and pernicious influences such as religious materials and guides to getting rich quick and/or losing 10 kilos in 10 days.

Perhaps you fear that, if you did accept romance novels, you'd be swamped with tattered Mills & Boons and old school romances with dubious covers and even more dubious expressions of consent. Except that you have already stated that books must be in "near new condition", so anyone who did so would be showing a blatant disregard for your guidelines and the work you do.

Therefore, I can only assume you have made a moral judgement on the content of romance novels, in general but in specific as to their suitability for people who are homeless. It can't be that, despite greater visibility of men sleeping rough, you are unaware of the large numbers of women who are homeless. There were 45,813 women who were homeless on census night in 2011, which accounted for 44% of the total number of people experiencing homelessness. I cannot believe that, with the removal of government funding from domestic violence and homelessness services over the intervening years, that things are any better now.

Speaking of domestic violence, 55% of women state this is the primary reason they have presented to homelessness services, and I suspect this is where your reasoning for banning romance lies, given that you have also disallowed true crime books, and books that deal with drugs, depression and suicide.

And, of course, there are undoubtedly women who, after experiencing intimate partner violence, do not want to read books that centre relationships, some instances and sub-genres of which may normalise controlling or other problematic behaviours. But I also know many readers in the online community who have experienced domestic and/or sexual violence, and who read romance and chick-lit for exactly this reason. As romance author and scholar Maya Rodale said:

Unlike any other literature, romance novels champion women who defy expectations, they validate their interests and experiences, they declare women deserve love, respect and pleasure, and they reward them for refusing to settle for second best. 

They are escapist and provide a guarantee that everything is going to be okay, which can provide comfort in a world that offers no such assurances, especially to women.

Thus far, I've spoken exclusively about women, but statistics from America show that only between 82-84% of romance novels are bought by women, so perhaps your male clients would also appreciate the choice of a few romance novels now and again.

I can only assume that you think that romance is trashy, anti-feminist, not what your clients want, and potentially detrimental to their wellbeing. I don't even know what to say about the exclusion of chick-lit, because I'm finding it hard to see any objection there but undisguised literary snobbery. It's true that there may be sub-genres, tropes and themes that might not be the most suitable, but this is also true of literary and other genre fiction, all of which you accept without caveats.

If you get in contact, I would be happy to help sort through/read any romance novel donations and pull out ones that contain anything that might be triggering, and I'm sure there would be other people willing to do the same in other cities, including some of your current workers and patrons. Maybe that's not the best answer - I don't know - but surely it's better than completely removing choice and agency from your clients, as you are currently. After all, the entire purpose of your organisation is to counter the dehumanisation that can occur when people sleep rough, and yet you are treating your clients in a paternalistic and infantilizing manner. Unless you have asked your customers if they would like to read romance and chick-lit, and the vast majority said no, in which case I apologise. But somehow I suspect you haven't.

I still greatly admire the work of your organisation, and, although I can't make a donation without spending a sizable amount of time re-sorting my books, I'll send my serious literature friends your way.

Sincerely,
Dani

P.S. You'll never see this, of course, and I'll never be brave enough to send it to you, so...I guess we'll never know what could have been. Keep up the otherwise good work.

Review: Most Eligible Bachelor by Empi Baryeh

2.5 stars
*SPOILER ALERT*

There were aspects of Most Eligible Bachelor I really liked, and others I had serious problems with. I started off thinking it was definitely a 4 star read, then I revised to 3, and now it's ended up with a 2.5. In a nutshell, the hero exhibited some really worrying, dickhead behaviour and I can't move on from that. 

Set in Ghana, Most Eligible Bachelor is the story of Chantelle Sah, a journalist with a well-respected national magazine, and her interviewee, Lord McKenzie, a construction juggernaut with a playboy reputation. Unbeknownst to Chantelle, Lord has been following her work and specially requested that she be the one to interview him, on Valentine's Day, no less. Valentine's Day has been pretty shitty for Chantelle since her fiance died - with another woman - three years before, but that doesn't mean she's going to fall for Lord's smooth lines. 

For the most part, I enjoyed this take on the arrogant businessman meets resistant woman set-up, and Chantelle's backstory provided some good depth to this, as did Lord's desire for a loving relationship like his parents'. At first, I worried that the stiry relied too heavily on the use of conventional tropes, but the Ghanaian setting and relative strength of Chantelle as a character provided a good balance.

However, as I mentioned earlier, I had some serious issues with the Lord's behaviour, in particular his decision not to tell the Chantelle the condom broke when they first had sex. I read romance for escapism, and men robbing women of their agency is one of the most real life scenarios there is. It's depressing, it's frustrating and it's very hard to keep backing a relationship where it occurs. Even though the reason a man treats a woman this way is, by and large, irrelevant, Lord's rationale somehow does make it worse. He calls Chantelle to tell her, but she doesn't pick up, so he convinces himself that it'll be fine, she's probably on the pill anyway. Then the issue is dropped for ages, and I thought - because he's clearly psychic about her contraceptive choices - that he must not intend to tell her. But, oh no, he still does, he's just 'waiting for the right time'. Even though, by this point, they've been alone together about a dozen times. MATE, there is no right time to tell someone the condom broke, you do it ASAP so they have options and can be checked out. In the end, he doesn't tell her until she is already about to take a pregnancy test, which is so not ok. Chantelle is obviously angry, pointing out that if he'd told her earlier, she could have had the morning after pill. But then she forgives him, because, you know, love. That's where I started to detach from the story, because I was unable to trust his assurances that he wouldn't ever act in a similar manner (there are other incidents where he railroads Chantelle or doesn't respect when she says no), and so my desire for and belief in the HEA was reduced somewhat. 

It's a shame, because at other times, Lord could seem really sweet and be the kind of hero I wanted him to be. In one instance, Chantelle tries to initiate something, and doesn't proceed, concerned that she is emotional and still has regrets over the last time they slept together. I could get behind that Lord, but, unfortunately, he is ultimately eclipsed by his horrible twin.

So, overall, Most Eligible Bachelor was a mixed bag. It started strong, had good writing (although I wasn't a massive fan of the euphemisms in the sex scenes) and a well-executed plot (with the obvious exception of the whole I'm-not-going-to-tell-you-about-the-condom-breaking conflict). I just wish the hero had lived up to his potential, and allowed the heroine the freedom of choice she deserved. 

Review: Revolutionary Hearts by Pema Donyo

1 star
*SPOILER ALERT*

The plot and writing of Revolutionary Hearts were both a bit lacklustre, but I probably would have given it a 2.5 if it hadn't perpetrated some really intense symbolic violence and erasure. 

Revolutionary Hearts is set in India in 1924. Somehow, although don't ask me how, the Americans have an operative named Warren masquerading as a British general, so that they can investigate whether this guy named Raj Singh is an anarchist who might be a threat to the U.S.. I don't know, maybe that's legit, I didn't check it out. Anyhow, Warren meets Raj's Anglo-Indian sister Parineeta, who Raj sends to find out exactly how much this general suspects about his activities. Then Warren gets exposed by an actual British general (or possibly someone of another lower rank, I can't remember), so then he and Parineeta take off across the country. Parineeta is supposed to be leading Warren to Lucknow where he can meet up with his fellow operative, but then they magically meet up with Raj and his fellow freedom fighters and shit goes down. (More on that later.)

For the first half of this book, I was cruising along. Well, it was reasonably unmemorable and I had some pretty big gripes - the use of racial slurs, and things that seemed stereotypical or just plain wrong, such as a reference to butter chicken when surely it would have been dahl or similar - but I was hanging in there.

We're not given much information about the organisation Parineeta's brother is part of, the Hindustan Republican Association, except that the Americans are worried they might be anarchists. Thanks to that and my rusty Indian history it was only halfway through that the light-bulb went off over my head: the Hindustan Republican Association was what would later become the HSRA, and the train robbery that Parineeta's brother is organising is the Kakori Revolution. Once I had that realisation, I got really mad, and I just kept getting madder.

The story of the HRSA, and Bhagat Singh as its face, is one of the most quintessential and dearly held stories of Indian Independence Movement, and here it was sanitised until it was devoid of all context or sense of place, except for random info-dumps on the Rowlatt Act or the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre or some other barbaric act of imperialism, used only to give the characters motivation. It's been co-opted so that it has a three-quarters white hero and half-white heroine at its centre, displacing the full-blood Indians who rightfully belong there. Men who - by the way - were later hanged for the murder of a passenger on that train, though there's no mention of this, not even in an Author's Note at the end. In this fictionalised version, the passenger was killed by the heroine. So, what, I'm just supposed to watch our heroine and her hero ride off into the sunset, and separate this from the knowledge that, IRL, five men were sentenced to death and another 14 jailed for their role in the robbery, for the murder that the author had the heroine commit? Because the level of cognitive dissonance inherent in that is INSANE, let alone the statement that makes on what's important and what isn't.

If it's meant to be a fictionalised version where people don't get punished and murdered, then fictionalise it. Don't use the names of the men who were hanged for the names of your characters - so far as I can see, all of the revolutionary characters bear the names of the real revolutionaries, including Raj Singh (who got ten years imprisonment, by the way, so the heroine lives her HEA while her brother rots away? Nice!). Change the name of the town from Kakori. I don't know, just do something so that this isn't as horrible. Because, as it stands, the author's strategy is simply to assume that nobody with any knowledge of Indian history (or opposable thumbs to type things into Google) will read this book and put two and two together.

I went back and forth about whether to post this, and what form it should take, for a long time, because this isn't my history, my country, or people. Ultimately, I have written as much and as strongly as I did because I was upset, although I have little right to be, and even less to centralise my feelings. Basically, this is a frustrated rant, and there are considered critques out there that Indian and South Asian writers (and POC in general) make all the time, talking about the hurt done by bad representation. Romance author Suleikha Snyder wrote a post just the other day, when a prominent romance author called for recommendations set in India, and none that came back were by South Asians. A lot of that deals with the erasure inflicted by making characters half-white.

I don't really know how to finish this post up, because everything potential ending I've written sounds either really didactic, like a platitude, or more ME ME ME, and I don't want to go down any of those paths. So, over and out, I guess.