That being said, and not in reference to this book or to
@genevieve's choice, more of a general question, are we only to read books where the author has first hand knowledge/experience/background to write a story?
But we also accept men who create female characters, and women who create male characters. Writers whose sexuality does not align with their characters, villains who do terrible things that one hopes the author has never done, who write of professions they've never worked in, of parenting when they have no children, of places they've never actually visited, of loss when those they love are very much alive.
So at one point do we say "you are allowed to write about this" and "you are not"? Honestly a general question, interested to hear what others think.
I appreciate the discussion on this - just wanted to come back and respond.
There are definitely books I've read where the protagonist is a different culture from the author, and sometimes that works, sometimes it really, really doesn't. It was in reading the plot summary for this particular book that I grew concerned, because this plot seemed ripe for promoting a completely off-base point of view in the hands of someone without an authentic understanding of what it's like to live in a Mexican city rife with drug cartels. Add in the component about the huge author advance for telling a story that isn't "hers" when Mexicans, particularly Mexican women, do not get well compensated for their histories, and it's just a big pile of ICK.
We are also in a different time than even when
The Help came out (fueled, in part, by the success of that book/film and subsequent backlash). I read the book at the time and enjoyed it - the discussions afterward helped me understand the challenges with that type of storytelling (especially the Abilene chapters). The Help phenomenon is also complicated by the fact that Stockton used her privilege to launch Octavia Spencer's career - and, at least at the time,
Spencer was very complimentary about the book.
Interesting to bring up food, because the GF and I have discussed that endlessly (she is a trained cook, and her specialty is Turkish and Middle Eastern cuisine). It's not about not being able to cook the food you love the most, it's that restaurants led by white owners and chefs get away with charging a shit ton more for food than the people who know it best. It's a very colonial mindset and we're still only at the beginning of understanding and unpacking that (we being predominantly white/western culture).
To bring this back to books, the book
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn is about a Jamaican woman who emigrates to the US. There is a minor subplot when she takes a job at a Jamaican restaurant owned/led by a white chef in New York - it is so spot on and delightful in its depiction of high end "ethnic" cuisine. I enjoyed the book overall, but that section is the most memorable.
As for
American Dirt, I read the first chapter and it came across as a middle of the road thriller - I've certainly read a ton of those with varying degrees of enjoyment - but decided I could not separate the story from the controversy and would be examining every word with skepticism so why bother. Then I remembered last summer I'd picked up
Catfish and Mandala and decided to read that instead. Enjoying it so far, although it was published in 1999 - recent enough to feel completely contemporary, but technology is so vastly different that I keep wondering why he doesn't just look things up on his smartphone
