Note: You can now get new postings from Quick Brown Fox delivered to your Inbox as I publish them.
***
As I stood in line at my
local library with an armful of books to
purchase from the “old books for sale” table, the woman waiting beside me decided
to comment on my reading choices. The conversation was brief because there was
a moment when I wanted to tell her, in a loud voice that is not to be used in a
library, to mind her own business.
“Wow! You’re still reading
romance books?” she said with a lift of one brow, and a side smirk.
“Yep, I am,” I responded,
while slowly counting to ten in my head.
“Don’t you think that’s,
well, sort of out of step with the times?”
“Nope.”
“Do you enjoy reading
them?” she continued.
Duh. Wasn’t it obvious?
At this point, I turned to
face her, and said, “Yes, I do.”
As I placed my books on
the desk for the librarian to calculate payment, I turned to the nosy busybody
who is prejudiced against stories that contain the concept of love, and bid
her a warm and safe winter.
As is often the case, it
was only when I was making the drive homewards that I thought of a better
response to Mrs. I’m Too Good To Read Romance Novels.
What I should have said
is: “Have a wonderful Christmas. Oh, if your fortunate enough to be sitting at
the same dinner table as your parents – or grandparents – just think – they had
sex which is the reason that you’re able to be condescending to me at this
moment.”
My witty responses often
emerge when I’m the only person in the room, unfortunately.
As I mulled over the
interaction, I thought of other moments when someone, a friend or stranger, has
commented on the validity of romance as literature. Only this past year, I met
a woman who proudly proclaimed that she had never read Pride and Prejudice
or watched a movie based on the book.
How is that possible? The
book was originally published in 1813 and is still selling – over 20 million
copies to date. It’s often considered the original romantic comedy, a
contemporary story of what it was like to be a woman in England during the
reign of King George III (the Mad King) and Queen Charlotte upon whom is based
the most recent addition to the Bridgerton Netflix series.
As for the Bridgerton
series, it’s been viewed by more than 80 million people, making a lot of money
for the author Julia Quinn, Netflix and Shonda Rhimes, a powerhouse and
formidable writer, director and producer.
Ms. Rhimes is a woman of
colour and introduced the concept of colour blind casting.
In the world she’s created
for viewers, it doesn’t matter what the colour of your skin is. It does matter
what your heart yearns for.
What did men and woman
want 200 years ago?
Love.
What do they want now?
Love.
What has the romance genre
given the world? An enormous number of gay stories, books about people falling
in love and facing the difficulties that society imposes because they are of
the same sex.
“What’s that got to do
with me?” you might be thinking.
When we purchased our
home, we had a neighbour named Jim, a generation or so older than me, a
bachelor by all appearances. He was the type of person that you could call at 3
a.m. to pick you up from the police station or drive you to a doctor’s
appointment. He knew how to fix a leak under the kitchen sink, how to remove
those awful sticky labels attached to nice glass jars, and 101 other things. He
never complained – about anything. He was perpetually cheerful. He became my
closest friend. He was my boyfriend “without benefits” and when my husband was
working or wasn’t interested, it was Jim and I who went to the Tuesday movies
(it cost less and he was very frugal), to concerts, and to the garden centre.
He was gay.
And lonely.
I loved him.
I read a couple of gay
romance novels and worked up the courage – while we were drinking Margaritas at
our favourite bar – to ask Jim why he didn’t have a boyfriend.
His response: “I was the
only child of five siblings who couldn’t marry because marriage wasn’t legal. So,
I was left to look after my mom and dad until they died.”
With a shrug of his
shoulders, he continued, “I never told them I was gay.”
Imagine not being able to
tell your parents that you want to love and be loved, to tell them your truth.
Gay romance novels have made a group of people that until recently were not
treated like you and I, find a place to read stories about themselves, and for
readers like me to better understand their journey. At the end of the day, Jim
and I wanted the same thing: to be loved just as we are.
Let’s get the sex talk out
the way.
Are there super-duper sexy
steamy romance novels? Yes, there are.
Do I read those
type of romance books? Yes, I do.
If the entirety of my sex
education had remained what I was taught in Catholic School, I would be
incredibly naïve about pleasure, about boundaries and about men.
Did my parents have the
sex talk with me? Not really, unless you consider waking up my father during
the night to ask why my cat Ophelia was meowing loudly and there were a couple
of kittens on my bed. My dad explained
it as “Your cat went for a walk and came home with babies. Go sleep somewhere
else.”
If you’re in a long-term
relationship, you’ve probably hit that moment when things feel stale. Try reading
a page or two out loud to your partner of a sex scene that is detail oriented
and see if that helps shake things up. Or download an audiobook and both of you
listen on a long road trip.
If reading about sex
doesn’t suit your personal preferences, that’s perfectly fine. There are plenty
of romance novels where all the action takes place off the page. There are
inferences of how the couple look at each other across a fence while chickens
aggressively peck the dirt around their feet and a couple of cows are mooing in
the distance, but at the end of the story, the couple gets to live Happily Ever
After.
The Happily Ever After
(HEA) is the only rule that applies to the romance genre. You can read – or
write – about monsters and shapeshifters, blue skinned aliens from an ice
planet or Amish farmers, lawyers and firefighters, dukes and nannies, age gap
or mobster stories.
In other words, there is
something for everyone.
Most romance novels are
written with the concept of the “female gaze.” For centuries, books have been
written by men, for men and from a male perspective. Romance novels have a
woman’s interests and desires – which differ from a man’s perspective – front
and centre.
In the last several years,
there’s been a surge in books written about women who are engineers,
scientists, quantum physicists and mathematicians, careers that in the last
century were male dominated, but in this century, women have made substantial
inroads and have not been sidelined simply because they are women whose monthly
cycle and hormones might influence their decision-making capabilities.
Depending on your
generation, you might not think that this matters, but it does. It means that
you can be called the “nerdy girl” behind your back – or sometimes to your face
- and find your life’s partner, someone who values your heart and mind. Women
in romance novels can have it all – love and a career and financial
independence and make their own decisions.
Do I read other genres?
Yes. I have a copy of every book written by Agatha Christie, some of which I’ve
managed to purchase in used bookstores in England or elsewhere. I’m a huge fan
of Patricia Cornwell’s coroner, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, but don’t read the gruesome
parts if it’s dark outside and I’m home alone. My imagination runs wild, and I
find I’m peering out the window in the middle of the night.
My recommendation is
simply this: follow Book Tok or any other social media platform if you’re
interested in finding out what’s currently hot in the marketplace. This
summer’s surprising hit was “Butcher & Blackbird” by B. Weaver, an author
from Nova Scotia. I was hesitant to read it because the main characters are different
(you can read the blurb) but am hugely impressed with the imagination and
talent of the author and eagerly await her next book.
There are many books that
hold an “icon” status, and although written years, or decades, ago carry the
same importance today as they did when originally published. Loretta Chase’s Lord
of Scoundrels published in 2000 is a historical romance re-telling of
Beauty and The Beast.
It Had to be You by Susan
Elizabeth Phillips, published in 2002, is still a book that I would happily
take to a deserted island. It features a football coach who assumes that the
busty blonde who inherited a football team is dumb because of how she looks, and
then falls in love with the person behind the blonde hair and big boobs.
The hero in the The
Takeover published in 2020, written by T. L. Swan, is one of those uber
rich, uber handsome, uber wealthy men that I may have secretly {in my younger
years} yearned to meet, who falls in love with a woman who is older, and a
widow with three children.
So, whether your kink is
vanilla ice cream, or something more outrageous like the everything bagel
flavoured ice cream some maniac created, if you need comfort during the cold
winter months, or something funny and happy to read while sitting on a beach,
there is a romance book for you.
***
Gigi
Aldona Barysas resides in Ontario by a lake
surrounded by woods and wild animals, with her husband and her dog, Gigi. Her
favourite things include books and writing (obviously), Agatha Christie novels
and movies, any foreign accent, hamburgers and tequila, beach life and cold-water
swimming. Life is an adventure.
Notes: Quick Brown Fox welcomes your short stories, poems, and essays about reading, writing, favourite books, and libraries. Read a few pieces on the blog to get a taste of what other writers have done. See here {and scroll down}.
You can get an email about twice a month about what’s coming up in terms of writing classes, workshops, and retreats, plus providing links to the other material on the Quick Brown Fox blog. For that, add your name and email in the Sign-Up box at the top of the righthand column. ~Brian
See my upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend
retreats here.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.