September 23
2009
Photojournalist Maisie Crow's award winning pictures of seventeen-year old "Autumn" gave me serious pause when I first saw them and prompted this next round of discussion. After five years of reviewing teen fiction I have noticed that while many of us grew up reading books that highlighted the protagonist's socioeconomic background, contemporary fiction often seems to place teens in an artificial world where parents work for unnamed people at unnamed jobs yet receive either masses of money, or conversely can't get jobs at all. The great swath of the American public however have actual jobs - blue collar or white collar they simply go to work to get a paycheck. In teen literature this is often not part of the equation and it left me wondering what that means to so many kids who can not ignore the money or how they live because of it.
Autumn is, as Crow explains, a victim of generational poverty. A separate discussion could be held on what this means to someone (and several of the writers here touch on it) but mostly she seems immobilized and completely incapable of improving her life. Books can not give you freedom, or a big bank account, but they can light a pathway and for kids like Autumn, I wonder if we are doing enough. By not writing about someone in Autumn's situation, by not making money part of the story are we ignoring her yet again, along with everyone else in or near her situation?
I should point out two favorite books of mine, Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr and Season of Ice by Diane Les Becquets, are both ostensibly about other things but show what it is like for a family to be hanging on by their financial fingertips - not poor but barely middle class. In both case these authors do an excellent job of keeping the story grounded in a firm layer of realism that is to be lauded and much appreciated.
Now here are the questions - I gave the group multiple things to think about on this general issue and their choice in what way they wish to tackle it. Do you think historic MG & YA fiction addresses socioeconomic status more effectively than contemporary titles? How important do you think it is for readers to identify with protagonists of their own socioeconomic background? Do you need to read about people with the same financial struggles you have or in times of trouble is it better just to live vicariously? Are realistic titles of this type just too much of a downer? If the book is about fitting in or teen love or friendship, does it help or hinder to drop those details into the plot? Is socioeconomic fantasy just a new kind of fantasy - as out of this world as vamps and wizards and just as much fun? Are we in literary denial or just willfully trying to conjure a more carefree world?
Jenny Davidson: "I do think socioeconomic fantasy is just another form of wish-fulfillment fiction - personally I would rather read about, say, being able to fly or have magical powers than have an infinity of shoes and handbags and allure, but perhaps that is just me! The Gossip Girl books (I have only read one, but I liked it quite a bit) are deeply fantasizing, in serious ways as well as trivial ones, and even if we don't like the extremely expensive-material-thing-oriented emphasis, I don't know that readers are mostly taking this as anything other than the stuff-of-imagination it is. So, for instance, reading about those girls on the Upper East Side might have some of the same appeal as reading the descriptions of food in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy!
To offer a more serious response, though, yes: I relish the good descriptions I find in contemporary YA fiction of life in situations of material scarcity, and though I would hesitate to mandate (even casually!) what people should be writing, I am sure that these books should be put in the hands of teenaged readers. Michelle Embree's Manstealing for Fat Girls is a good example - a very persuasively created everyone's-sorta-broke white lower-middle-class milieu, and wonderfully appealing and interesting characters. Holly Black's teenagers living in the human world adjacent to faerie are not well-off or materially comfortable, and this is part of the appeal of those books for me. So many of us did worry about how the rent was going to be paid when we were growing up, it certainly seems to me this should feature in books - it is very artificial to imply by exclusion that young people are not worried about how, as it were, the IMPORTANT things in their lives will be paid for (the groceries, the utility bill, the rent) as well as the things like iPhones and cashmere sweaters!
Some of my favorite books when I was a teenager were Cynthia Voigt's books about Dicey Tillerman and family. I always remember the scene in one of the later books where a curious outsider asks why, if the Tillermans are so broke, they are eating butter instead of margarine - one of the kids explains that though powdered milk isn't as good-tasting as regular milk, it's much cheaper and that's why they drink it, but that cheap margarine just isn't as good as butter - it's not a place to economize if you care about food. Details like this are so telling, so vivid, and obviously novels are one of the ways that we get a sense of lives other than our own..."
Zetta Elliott: "Since I read so many novels by Dickens when I was growing up, I had a somewhat romanticized view of poverty; deprivation was terrible and often led to degradation, but inherent moral worth would triumph and be rewarded in the end. I guess I bought into the idea of “the deserving poor,” and my working class family certainly clung to their Christian, middle-class values: there was no shame in being poor so long as you were clean, courteous, and industrious. Yet I knew from my experiences in high school that being smarter, faster, prettier, or nicer would not necessarily win you the gold medal. By the time I reached graduate school I realized this was “the myth of meritocracy,” and I was then able to theorize my previous experiences.
I just read Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and thought he brilliantly exposed the anxiety and ambivalence of being a poor child with aspirations that take you outside your racial, cultural, and class community. I could certainly identify with Junior’s attempts to keep up with the white Joneses, and his constant fear that his white middle-class peers would discover he was poor and, therefore, somehow lesser than them—unclean, immoral, unworthy. In black urban literature there tends to be an emphasis on the way poverty shapes and/or limits a character’s choices; this is real, but I do sometimes worry that white middle-class readers are drawn to such books out of a perverse desire to be voyeurs—impoverished urban blacks are “exotic,” and the dysfunction of their world leads to titillation rather than sympathy or understanding. It seems the only way class can effectively be critiqued (or even noticed) is if the author makes a point of mixing class backgrounds in her book, which I always try to do."
Melissa Wyatt: "Well, socioeconomic class isn't something we discuss much in the real world, not in this country, anyway. We like to believe that class does not exist in America. Early on, we prided ourselves on that fact, as it was something that set us apart from the country that had dominated us. But today, I don't think we like to admit to class issues because it goes against the American Dream. We're supposed to strive to be upwardly mobile. Many of our heroes are financial giants, from Rockefeller to Bill Gates.
But the hard truth is that that dream isn't for everyone. We can't all be rich. Some of us have to be the worker bees. And that's an uncomfortable thought. Few Americans like to think "No. It's not going to be me." Do we need to keep the dream of wealth alive even in what we read? Maybe.
So sure there's a fantasy aspect to stories about the rich. But it has another side to it. It's comforting to read and believe that even rich people have their problems. Money doesn't buy you complete happiness. A broken heart hurts just as much, decked in designer duds.
But there's another issue with class and money that is, I think, specific to YA lit, and it's one I encountered when I was looking for a publisher for my book, Funny How Things Change. The book is about a lower class boy who is--if not happy about not having much money--at least prepared to be content. He doesn't go to college. He resists the idea of leaving his economically depressed town. A number of editors had serious problems with these aspects of the book because they did not fit into their ideas of what a YA novel should do, to provide a proper aspirational model. A story about a teen not interested in altering his economic and social status was considered a story not worth telling.
Not that I think we need to swing in the opposite direction and preach acceptance and resignation, but to recognize that we don't all want the same things or the same lifestyles is important and doesn't automatically make one person less worthy than someone with different ideas. I do think financial struggles are much more of a downer than things like teen pregnancy or suicide. They don't have the dramatic impact, for one. Those other issues are read vicariously and are easier to distance yourself from when they haven't actually touched your life, while not having money for the things you want or actually need is a very real problem that is often hanging right over teens as they think toward the future and college and supporting themselves. Money becomes a very real, very personal problem. But, as Tracy Lord put it, lack of wherewithal doesn't always equal unhappiness. And that is something you don't often see reflected in YA lit."
Laurel Snyder: "Oh, to lose LIMES!
No disrespect to Alcott (love her!) but if you update the March family, they do not become the working poor. They become a wealthy educated family fallen on hard times. Oddly enough, that's the topic of the book I'll have out next fall, and I have to say that writing about rich people who have to get rid of their house staff is NOT quite the same as tackling systemic class issues.
When I think about this issue, I think of two amazing sets of books-- Lenski's regional novels, and Cynthia Voight's Tillerman Trilogy. Both were sets of books that helped shape me as a political thinker. Both sets of books taught me something about equality. That art and poetry and love and ethical behavior and emotional intelligence don't belong to the educated.
But THAT-- education--is the trick to this question, for me. As writers, we tend to be educated. As self-aware thinking people, we (many of us) feel we'd be misappropriating if we borrowed the pain of another culture or class. I can write (as the child of a downwardly-mobile socialist) about a big ugly public school (I went to one) or about a pervert masturbating on a city bus (seen that plenty). I can address divorce and being a latchkey kid. But on some level, that's as far as I'm willing to go. My parents went to college. I don't feel like I can attempt to capture the cycle of poverty poor, or the plight of the homeless.
With the distance of history, I can attempt it, maybe, because I'm not stealing from the living. As a Jew I can write the tale of family in the Pale, awaiting the next pogrom. Because it's part of my ancestry. And there's nobody else left to tell it. But I'm afraid I'd begin with assumptions and a blunt instrument if I tried to write in the voice of my neighbors here in Atlanta (I live in a rough area). And in fearing to fail, I'm afraid to try.
Which is not something I'm defending. I think we NEED books about people who really struggle. Fantasy is fun, but it doesn't teach us much about how to be good humans. It doesn't help kids understand the social contract, or develop political identities. I'm just not sure how to write the books we need. Obviously we need a more equal educational system. So poor kids can grow up to write great books! Sigh..."
Sara Ryan: "When I think about how class is and is not featured in YA, I think a lot about the Unmarked State.
Nisi Shawl, co-author of Writing the Other, defines the unmarked state this way: "Possessing characteristics which are seen as “normal,” and thus not worth being mentioned. In this society, at this time, this includes being white, male, heterosexual, cisgendered, affluent, and with certain physical abilities. Just about everyone deviates from the unmarked state in one way or another, though some ways are deemed important and others are not."
When we don't, as writers, think hard about the socioeconomic status of our characters and how it affects their lives, we may as well be setting our books in the Unmarked State.
I was out earlier this evening with some women I was meeting socially for the first time. Some questions that came up over the course of the conversation: "Where do you live?" "Do you own or rent?" "How many square feet?" "Where do you work?" "Are you union?" These are all questions about class.
A character's ability or inability to buy a new phone or dress can be a crucial detail. I once read about a couple who fell in love across deep class divisions. She was extremely wealthy. He was working-class. She had a birthday coming up. Her family was going to throw her an extravagant party. He didn't think he'd be able to come, because of his work schedule. You see where this is going, right? As it turned out, he was at her party -- working, as a member of the catering staff.
You could tell a fantastic story from the point of view of either one of them. It comes down, as it always does, to representing the particular and specific in such a way that it resonates universally."
Loree Griffin Burns: "My instinct is to insist that writers—and readers—are somewhere between denial and willful sugarcoating of the poverty issue. Coming up with titles to illustrate this point, however, wasn’t easy for me. The relevant books from my childhood include Margaret Sydney’s The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and Natalie Savage Carlson’s The Family Under the Bridge. My memory of these books puts them squarely in the sugarcoating category, I think: I finished them content with the idea that poverty wasn’t such a bad thing … it could be overcome with a bright attitude and a loving family. On the other end of the spectrum were the Nancy Drew books I devoured, books that would, I suppose, qualify as the ‘willful conjuring of a carefree world’, albeit 1960s style.
The book that fell in the middle for me—the book that changed everything—was S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. It rocked my middle class world, made me think about who I was and where I fit into a society divided into socs and greasers. At the same time I acknowledged Hinton’s idea that people are really the same, that socs hurt just as much as greasers do, I wondered if I could ever really be friends with a Ponyboy Curtis, or if he would ever be friends with someone like me. This book made me think hard about issues I hadn’t thought about before. Maybe there aren’t a lot of books in the middle ground between sugarcoating and economic fantasy, but the brave writers who go there have the power to change the way readers think.
Thinking about this question from the nonfiction point of view, I was hard pressed to come up with trade titles that address issues of contemporary American socioeconomics. I am excited to read Albert Marrin’s Years of Dust, just out from Dutton and sitting on my desk as I type. And I can think of other books that explore class issues in American history (Susan Campbell Bartoletti’s Growing Up in Coal Country, for example), but what recent works of nonfiction for young people explore socioeconomic issues in contemporary American society? I don’t know. They must be out there. Mustn’t they? What are they? I hope you all have some recommendations."
Kekla Magoon: "I see a couple of issues here: one is class, and the other is economic hardship. They're not quite the same thing, in my mind. The Marches in Little Women are an upperclass family in economic hardship, while Jacqueline Woodson's Miracle's Boys are a family living in poverty, for whom economic hardship is the status quo. I'm not sure we deal well enough with either thing in teen lit, but we definitely try harder at portraying the latter.
I dealt with class issues in my historical novel, and quite a few readers have commented on the fact that we don't see a lot of teen books incorporating class crossover--either all the characters are wealthy, all are middle/working class, or all are living in poverty. I don't think there's a difference between historical and contemporary on this front. I suspect it's because the real world often works this way, and authors tend to write what they know. If a middle/upper middle class author tries to write a homeless teen, or a teen living in the projects, the narrative will most likely be skewed from reality, perhaps colored by prejudice and/or pity. I absolutely support authors who write outside their experience, and it's important to show socioeconomic diversity in MG & YA fiction, but so often we do it through the lens of our own social class, because some of the the inherent experiences and values we internalized as children cannot easily be overcome. My point is that YA authors who get published tend to be middle class and up, for reasons of access, and the same is true of the majority of publishing industry professionals. So, we have a preponderance of literature that reflects that background. We need to keep opening access to the industry for writers from different social classes. It's a blanket generalization, of course, but I've observed that young readers in middle class environments get more support for time spent with literature. If a school can barely afford books, how are they going to keep a librarian on staff, or bring writers in for school visits, so that youth can see a different kind of professional role model? How are they going to learn that creativity is an option for them? I've stood in rooms with students whose eyes widen upon realizing that someone who looks like me (class notwithstanding) can write a book. But I digress.
Economic hardship is a complicated animal, too. For 99% of folks, carefree wealth is a total fantasy, and there's nothing at all wrong with exploring and embracing that in fiction. Yes, it's an escape, or a part of the so-called American dream. It only becomes problematic when teens stop treating it as fantasy, and start trying to live up to it, which often times ends in despair. So it's also of value to show the real, grittier side of all that glamor: what happens when you don't have the money. All of us who write contemporary, non-fantasy fiction need to make an effort to be aware of economic issues, and try to populate our books with a range of kids. Not that it has to come out in detail in every book, but these issues are always present in life, so why not in fiction? One friend's parents often make more than her best friend's (or simply manage their spending money differently), so Girl A can go to camp while her friend can't, or she can buy lunch while her friend brings a paper bag. Financial complications don't have to BE the story, but they shouldn't be ignored."
Beth Kephart: "I am reminded, by your question, of one of the earliest responses to my novel, Undercover, whose teen protagonist does not possess any brand-name clothes or, in fact, any material anything that would place her within the cooler social set. "You really should have given Elisa some fashion sense," my well-meaning friend said. "Today's kids," she continued, "will have a hard time relating to a girl who actually wears old trousers."
Some truly great, recently published YA fiction does take us into the less-advantaged socio-economic realms. Some of my favorites are, however, set in long-ago eras. There is Hannah Tinti's The Good Thief, which is a phenomenal, Dickens-like tale about an orphaned boy-thief (the book wasn't published for YA per se, but definitely embraces such readers). There is also, of course, the impoverished Nazi Germany of The Book Thief and the clear lack of means in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
As for contemporary books in contemporary, realistic settings, there is nothing inherently depressing about reading of someone who is struggling financially. Darkness, depression, loneliness, and emptiness can invade the lives of the rich just as easily (perhaps more easily) as it can the lives of those who are not abundantly well off; conversely, joy, integrity, heroism and hope breaks through some of the toughest shells. Families are built of many things, character is shaped by circumstance, and it helps to see (I think it's essential to see) just where a character lives, just what sorts of constraints or opportunities she rubs against, and what she chooses to do
with it all. Choice, at the end of the day, is story."
Mayra Lazara Dole: "If you've lived through poverty, starvation or homelessness, or if you've seen children of all colors, without arms or legs begging with their tongue, living in squalor and eating from dumpsters, the Ohio photographs, although dreadful, might not register as "destitute." At first glance, you see that these poor folk with no hope have food, junk-food, cigarettes, homes, shoes, new clothes, and they *seem* healthy and well groomed. These people are victims of isolation and segregation which could create a vicious circle: emotional, physical and alcohol abuse. If they don’t have proper nutrition or education most won't grow/mature intellectually or emotionally which in turn will keep them from learning or using skills to better their lives, thus they stay dependent upon their abusers (teen girl is sitting between the legs of the adult who tried to rape her in one photo and her family accepts it as "normal" behavior).
In my perspective, it seems that generational poverty might be partly caused due to Isolation and segregation. If one comes from a segregated, depressed area where barely no one can "escape," then there’s no hope to aspire for a better life because you can’t leave unless you are gorgeous and can send pictures to Hugh Heffner and appear in Playboy (one of the options for poor, but beautiful girls). If no one in the community is considered successful, then there are no role models to help empower and no money to aide anyone to leave--as you can imagine, perhaps ways of making easy, fast money for poor girls blessed with beauty who try to make a better life for themselves is risky.
One of my ex Boston roommates “escaped” from a depressed area in Ohio near the folks in those photographs. When we visited her mom, she explained that most parents in this area chain-smoke, get drunk, and physically and sexually abuse their children. When we passed by the decrepit area filled with trailers and teens outdoors smoking and adults drinking, I noticed that there were barely any options for food stores or other stores, except Walmart. I saw poor folks spending grocery money on junk food, alcohol and cigarettes, instead of on nutritious food imperative for proper brain function and health. The cost of living was extremely low.
Some readers need to identify with protagonists of their own socioeconomic background and others prefer not to. Immigrants and exiles that read and live in large cities might prefer reading books that allow them to emulate upper classes. This can motivate them to aspire for wealth and inspires them to work hard to reach the American Dream.
I know there are many of us who'd love to read stories written by authors who've experienced poverty, as well as novels that entertain and have you living vicariously. Exposing how others live through authentic lit might change the lives of teens like Autumn for the better. Personally, in these harsh economic times, I think we need to write about all kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds because "para los gustos se hicieron los colores" / Colors were made because of our different tastes."
[Post pics of "Love Me" series by Maisie Crow - the entire series is a must see.]
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September 22
2009
07:36 PM
Another amazing post in the series--excellent work, Colleen and everyone. (The timing's really good for me, actually, as I go back to revise an earlier ms. and am realizing that there are some definite issues of socioeconomic differences between characters...which I'd forgotten about somehow as I went to work on something else).
In reading this post I kept thinking about Tyrell by Coe Booth, which I recently read--a book that I can see really having the ability to touch a lot of lives and bring hope while NOT sugarcoating the options available--because there are so many kids in situations where there aren't options available and there's a shortage of adults with the ability or knowledge to help them. After I read it I was left with the horrible but certain sense that Tyrell's situation isn't all that unusual, either. But I think that, rather than being titillating in its glimpse of the "other", books showing protagonists of different backgrounds are also critical to sparking change where it may be needed.
Also, though, I agreed with the idea that people are content in very different circumstances and don't necessarily want to change. It does seem as though it's less acceptable to portray that in YA fiction, as though there's a disbelief that someone wouldn't WANT to be richer/more educated/whatever or that our impressionable youth will suddenly decide to become lazy and unmotivated.