Should books last forever? On writing in a 'cancel culture'

Writers think a lot about how to write but, surprisingly, not always about why they write in the first place. The Writer’s League of Texas’ Becka Oliver cornered a disparate trio of writers – Sarah Bird, Varian Johnson, and Joe R. Lansdale, one Black, two White -- at the WLT’s recent virtual “unconference” and bumped into a debate about the life span of books in today’s “cancel culture.”

Why write? Oliver asked.

“That is a hard and complicated question,” Johnson acknowledged. “I write because I’m trying to work something else (out) in the world.”  

From top left: Oliver, Bird, Lansdale, Johnson

“I would call (writing) a happy compulsion,” Lansdale said. “I write for me. I write like everybody I know is dead and hope readers like it.”

“It’s a defense against all the nonbelievers who surround you,” Bird said, noting that when she first began selling stories she was still reluctant to award herself the title of “author,” and would have answered the question by saying, “I write for money.” Later, during harder times, “I wrote to cheer myself up. . . (and) to memorialize my family.” Later, she termed the writing of her most recent book, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen, a fictionalized narrative of the only woman among the 19^th-century’s all-Black Buffalo Soldiers, “a calling.”

Then, having reached the point at which she could retire from writing, she found she no longer could abandon that calling. “I would be mentally ill if I didn’t.”

Nice word, that, “calling.” “Can you talk about what the calling of writing to kids,” Oliver asked Johnson, whose primarily for young readers books include The Great Greene Heist, The Parker League, and more.

Turns out, writing for kids is more complicated than a reader might think.

“Middle grade (literature) has to be written for years 8-12ish, while remembering that adults will read it too. . . The first draft is for only me, before putting the words out for an audience,” Johnson said.

Later drafts are about “sculpting for that (i.e. middle grade) audience,” including dealing with such difficult issues as racial slurs. “I think my only responsibility is to be true to the story, including some of the larger themes. The characters have to be true.”

And there it was again. The word in the room. Race.

Lansdale, whose dark tales are definitely not written for school age audiences, agreed with Johnson on the need for discretion when writing for the young. But for himself, “If you’re going to address race in the past, it may be uncomfortable. If I’m going to write about racism I have to write about the ugly aspects of it.”

So, how do classic books about those “ugly aspects” – the Huckleberry Finns and To Kill a Mockingbirds – with their plentiful racial epithets and violence, stand up in today’s audience? Is it time, the group debated, to “cancel” books written about race by White writers for primarily White audiences?

Lansdale was adamant about defending Mockingbird, which he opened his eyes as a youngster brought up in deep East Texas. (Some of his own writings, such as the thriller The Bottoms have been compared to Harper Lee’s story, and his comic duo Hap and Leonard features Black and White oddball investigators.)

“The thing about books like To Kill a Mockingbird, which I read as a kid,” Johnson said, “(is) when people say that defines racism for the South, no, it (defines) racism for White people.”

And if, as Lansdale noted, “some of those books make White readers see what we don’t see,” Johnson replied, “Why should a book be expected to last forever?”

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I notice that in an earlier post I promised to provide guidance on some of the “tools” writers use in their work. But I admit, I’m now digging deeply into the virtual Thrillerfest, with its dozens of author conversations, so I’ll end here. Stay tuned for words from Virginia, Wyoming, South Carolina, and more!