Saturday, April 7, 2012

"Chicks can't write crime fiction"



Not long ago this guy I know (not a writer but a voracious reader) made a bold statement: “Women can’t write dark crime fiction,” he says. “It’s just not in their brains. Everyone knows that.”

Oooh. Bold words, yeah?

While I admire his stones, the only real response to that sort of statement is: “You, sir, are an idiot.”

…or at the very least, someone who is not keeping up.

At this moment in the on-going development of dark, brutal crime fiction (and genre fiction in general), there are more kick-ass female writers than ever before.
Some examples—

I just read McDroll’s two-part novella, THE WRONG DELIVERY, and anyone who says it’s not as bold or unflinching as anything written by any male writer out there is delusional.

Last year, Katherine Tomlinson wrote one of the most devastating collections of short stories I’ve ever read, the stunning TOXIC REALITY.

And hey, have you heard of this Christa Faust chick? Wrote the ass-kicking MONEY SHOT and its sequel, CHOKEHOLD. I promise you, you can’t write anything near as tough-minded.

How about Patti Abbott? Ever heard of her? Her story collection MONKEY JUSTICE was probably the best single-author collection of the year last year. And that talent must run in the Abbott genes; Megan Abbott, her daughter, is arguably the best dark fiction crime stylist around these days—check out BURY ME DEEP, THE END OF EVERYTHING and her other novels if you don’t believe me.

Julia Madeleine is another one who writes consistently tight and mean stuff; her latest, THE TRUTH ABOUT SCARLET ROSE, is a stunner.

Oh, and hey, what about Vicki Hendricks? CRUEL POETRY is tough and racy enough to make James M. Cain blush.

And those are just off the top of my head.

But what I said earlier, about ‘not keeping up’, when I really think about it, that’s not it at all. There have ALWAYS been great female crime writers. Only a complete jack-ass with no taste at all would dismiss Patricia Highsmith, for instance. She’s one of the all-time greats.

Helen Nielson is another one. And Dorothy Hughes. And Maryjane Meeker (Vin Packer).

And here’s something the great female writers of crime fiction can claim that their male counterparts can’t: most male writers (me included) can’t do female POV to save their lives.

There are exceptions, of course (Vincent Zandri does it very well in THE REMAINS), but for the most part you don’t see it often. All the female writers mentioned above, however, can slip into the male POV as easily as slipping into an old pair of sneakers. And they don’t, as a rule, write stereotyped male characters, either—you know, the kind you see in Thelma and Louise or your typical romance novel. Their male characters are every bit as fully developed as their female characters.

So, okay, rant done. I’m just saying, Mr. Chicks Can’t Write, try breaking out of your sequestered little male-dominated world long enough to see the brilliant, hard-as-nails female writers right in front of you. The wake-up call will do you good.

30 comments:

  1. Well said, sir! Faust, Highsmith and Megan Abbott are great. Will have to read some of the others on your list, though. Also, Josephine Tey's 'The Daughter of Time' is quite brilliant - one of my all-time favourite crime novels

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  2. Two brits deserve your attention, should you be unaware of them: Denise Mina and Cathi Unsworth, both excellent and dark writers who can go toe to toe with anyone.

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  3. Martin and Gordon-- Tey, Mina, and Unsworth... okay, got it. I'll look into them.

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  4. Glad you included Vicki Hendricks, Heath. She's one of the greatest, regardless of gender.

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  5. Yeah, I've only read one Vicki Hendricks (Cullen Gallagher did a mini-series on her work a year ago? maybe longer. Pretty far from the only thing I've bought on Cullen's rec.) but it was very, very good.

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  6. Thanks, Heath! Vicki's collection FLORIDA GOTHIC STORIES shows how well she can write dark and amazing shorts too.
    It is frustrating to see lists that only have male names on it.

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  7. It's across everything too, Patti.

    I'm big into my music (in and of itself often presented as a male preocupation. But I've never met anyone who didn't like sound.) and you often get lists of 'best albums of the decade/ever' that are almost exclusively male, with space given over to woman that simply cannot be ignored like Patti Smith or PJ Harvey or (this year at least) Adele.

    Look at films: Kathryn Bigelow, she was late into her career when she directed 'The Hurt Locker' and were saying that she became a good director? all of a sudden?

    Anyway, rant over! I just find it odd/interesting that woman get mostly ignored across the board. In 2012.

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  8. I-5 by Summer Brenner
    Helen Fitzgerald (The Devil's Staircase, Bloody Women)

    I've been saying that some of the best psycho noirs recently have been written by women.

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  9. This leads me to wonder just how many female noir authors this guy has actually sampled. My hopes are that you sent him away with a required reading list (in the form of a friendly suggestion, of course) that will qualify him to rise up out of the grips of ignorance and into the light of an informed opinion.

    That accomplished, your work is done. Kudos, my friend!

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  10. It's baffling how unenlightened some people can be when it comes to gender, and gender role stereotyping, like they've been living in a cave all their life hunting and gathering with a stick. How does one manage to behave like a complete neanderthal and yet somehow still manage to function in a modern society?

    I'm just glad that intelligent and cultured men, like the wonderful Heath Lowrance, out number them. Thanks for including me on that list of kick-ass dame writers :)

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  11. THE END OF EVERYTHING by Megan Abbott is so dark and delightfully feminine, it was straight up my favorite new crime fiction book in 2011. Female writers might have a different approach, but they go as deep and sometimes deeper into the dark.

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  12. Excellent Heath. Gender is not a gauge of ablility!

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  13. Good piece! I loved everything about this except the equally misinformed characterisation of the "typical romance novel" -- I'm that rare beast that writes dark noir crime and horror and romance as well. There's no 'typical' largely because there's so many subgenres, each requiring a very different set of characters. The only thing they have in common is the upbeat ending.

    There's a website that tries to read gender in writing; I've fed all kinds of writing into it and it never gives me more than a 50/50 chance of being female. People who dismiss any group on the basis of assumptions are missing a lot of good stuff.

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    1. Well said! There's so many excellent writers out there in every genre, and Romance is no exception. I write Romance, but I read everything, and especially like some of the authors Heath mentions. I love me a good thriller. Nice blog, Heath...lots of food for thought...Tarra

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  14. Oh, and here's the link to the Gender Analyzer. Try it out and see what it says about you :-)

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    1. And that quiz says there's a 74% chance that this blog is written by a woman. Hm.

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  15. hehehehe I got 51%, almost gender neutral for Dead End Follies. I wonder what are their qualifiers for male writing

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  16. Don't forget Hilary Davidson's THE DAMAGE DONE and THE NEXT ONE TO FALL!

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  17. And Pulp Serenade got 77% Male on the gender test. That's more manly than I've ever felt in my life.

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  18. Good on you for calling out his idiotic statement.

    Great gender test, Kate.
    I'm proud that one of my stories hit as 65% female (it had a female POV).

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  19. And Maj Sjowall. The Martin Beck books are brilliant and dark. She wrote them with her husband as an equal partner.

    Seth

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  20. Women write some of the greatest dark fiction and I've published several including Hilary Davidson, Sophie Littlefield, and Patricia Abbott.

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  21. Patricia Highsmith was great. Her Tom Ripley goes toe to toe with the likes of Richard Stark's Parker.

    Whit

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  22. excellent list — i'll add shirley jackson, author of "The Lottery," possibly the most disturbing short story of all time and "The Haunting of Hill House" as well.

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  23. Helen Fitzgerald and Denise Mina - The Best- just saying in case you forget.

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  24. Heath--you rock. Alice Sheldon had to call herself James Tiptree, Jr. to get taken seriously as a Sci Fi writer. Glad the women who write crime are doing it out in the open. Can't wait to dig into some of the work you mentioned that I (to my shame) don't know. And @Kate--you bet I'm going to check out that gender analyzer.

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  25. PS--Gender analyzer says, with 84% certainty, that NoHo Noir is written by a man. HAH!!!

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  26. Sickening to read Otto Penzler's list of the best of 2011 (LA TIMES MAGAZINE, APRIL). Fifteen writers-all male. And if I remember correctly, the same last year. If most readers are female, why are books by males their choice? Or is it that females seldom compile lists or are asked for them.

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