Here is a literary crisis about which no one speaks – a fantastic book written by somebody you might, at least in private fantasy, be happy to draw and quarter. In the (mythically) genteel world of books and writers, this crisis is properly resolved by absolute, dead silence. The wonderful 
book gets not a syllable of hallowed “word of mouth” promotion from you; your lips are sealed. You pen no review and provide no response whatever if the book or author is mentioned. In this way you preserve the myth of writerly courtesy, but… you also fail the First Cause of the writing life, which is appreciation of good writing. The conflict is thorny, irksome and tiring, but after days of brooding I have come down on the side of good writing. Mostly.
So here’s the story.
Two weeks ago I was in Portland (OR), saw a book review in the local paper and was so drawn to the book that I immediately bought it on my Kindle and sat reading it all that rainy afternoon. I read it again on the plane trip home, savoring the author’s near-poetic elegance and deep understanding of monsters who are human. It is a tale told by a 
metaphorical prisoner on death row in a metaphorical prison he perceives to be enchanted, giving the book its title. There are also the unnamed Fallen Priest, consigned to pastor this stony hell after a fall from grace, and The Lady, a death penalty investigator whose job it is to unearth the buried, grisly histories of condemned men. (The author is a licensed investigator who specializes in death penalty cases.)
I love this book, regard it as one of the best I’ve read in decades, with personal good reason. I’ve been a child abuse investigator and am painfully familiar with the horrors to which helpless, very young children may be subjected, damaging them for life. I am also no stranger to the realities of prison. For 17 years until his death, I was in weekly contact with a friend, a lifer in Louisiana’s maximum security prison. I can state with authority that this author knows what she’s talking about and, more significantly, transcends both the gritty and the sensational to arrive at a philosophical flashpoint so deep and true as to be worthy of its own school of thought. The book is magical, lyrical and uniquely real. Reading it, I kept nodding, “Yes, yes, yes!” I thought I’d write a long, glowing review even though writers aren’t supposed to write reviews. I do it anyway if a book, especially by a little-known author, is really good.
But there was this problem. The author has written other books, among them non-fiction anti-feminist polemic to which I take profound exception. (Read: I’d like to meet her in an alley somewhere, except she’s younger and a skilled amateur boxer (really) and I’d wind up in a body bag.) It is inconceivable to me that any woman could fail to see the deadly impact of pornography on women and children, but this author attacks Andrea Dworkin and Catherine McKinnon for their early and groundbreaking work on porn. Much worse, the author, with an obvious absence of research and scholarship, misrepresents and trashes feminist theorist Mary Daly, revered by women all over the world, who was also my friend. For that, the author is, to me, forever damned and anathema.
Mary Daly
Still, last year she wrote a brilliant, beautiful book. Its title is The Enchanted. Her name is Rene Denfield.
Abby, Abbie, this is one of the most perfect pieces of writing I have ever read. A couple of days ago my son was talking to me about how to write a good essay. He said think of it as a story you are telling. Identity the story arch and keep everything attached to it. You’ll get it all — tension, movement, a climax. And now I have read your essay not on this book but on your experience with this book, the story of you and this book — and I was absolutely riveted. And you leave us with questions and passions thrashing around like an angry sea. The question that comes next is much less intense, but I want to know: why do you say that writers aren’t supposed t write reviews?
Wow, Susan, thanks for your kind words! The rule about writers not reviewing each other is really an anachronism, a relic of ancient times (ten years ago) when books were reviewed by professional reviewers in newspapers and periodicals. Those days are gone, but for writers long enough in tooth to have been a part of that world, its spirit lingers in a sort of hidden code to which all subscribe. To write an unfavorable review of a peer, even now, would be a violation of the code. It’s verboten, unthinkable. One who does so immediately identifies her or himself as outside the pale. But writing favorable reviews? Still dicey, but I do it when I absolutely love a book by an author who doesn’t already have a publicity machine behind her/him.
Everybody doesn’t always have to agree on everything. There’s too much polarization among various “moral tribes” already. Kudos to you, Abigail, for posting this review!
Thanks, Carolyn. I figured that in the end what matters is The Book, the individual book and its message despite other books and other messages by the same author. Tough call, took me days to decide.
Abbie
I would repost this to facebook if I could figure out how. I think it would stir up a “shit storm” of discussion among some of my friends. Have you considered submitting it to The Oregonian–since she is a Portland writer?
I am in Portland but do not know of her.
What bothers me about Dworkin and some of her colleagues is that while they rightly denounced men’s attempts to control our sexuality in highly injurious and negative ways, they seemed to have substituted themselves in attempting to tell women how they should be sexual, in a sort of My Way, or you’re wrong and Not A Real/True Feminist. I felt that “the patriarchy” and that group of women were both (trying to) forbid me to follow my own needs in sexual partnerships, to tell me I was a slut, wrong, misguided, brainwashed–whatever. When I finally refused to listen to any of the do-nots, I enjoyed myself more.
I have an acquaintance who has told me several times that I’m not a feminist, without giving anything as evidence for that belief. At this point, things have deteriorated between us that I don’t much care what she thinks.
I don’t know if Dworkin and her fellow-thinkers (what do I call them/that? Word is not emerging) felt any differently about (written, mostly) erotica when it is female- and sex-positive, consensual, and relatively equally pleasant for all characters in the story, regardless of activity.
I never had any interest in the Ender series by Orson Scott Card, but I would not give any money to his coffers. There are a few male jerks in cinema who will also never see a penny from me, because even the ones whose work I did enjoy have done–and escaped punishment for–things I find heinous. The others, no skin off my back. I could not watch anything of theirs and ignore what crimes they’d committed in their private lives.
I have admired Mary Daly as long as I’ve been aware of her. I seem to recall being at one of her presentations, possibly on a book tour. Her “subversive” neologisms, if you can call it that, where she repurposed and re-formed words to emphasize a point–the linguistics student in me adored that, for making it necessary to think about our “ordinary” words. It changes how you view the world, and I appreciate that. I envy you having had Ms. Daly as a friend.
Would you believe there are writers whose main characters hate reading? How on earth could I consider reading those pieces?
Abigail, YES! to what Susan Huddis wrote. Wise woman, and YOU too!
I note that my comment of March 25th says the post is still awaiting moderation…
I mentioned above, without naming the jerks in cinema, whose coffers I will not enrich. They are both rapists of children who had reason to trust these men before their innocence was torn from them. One married her abuser, who may have “only” been guilty of statutory rape–if she consented, and was capable of consenting. Both were Power-Over situations.
Now much worse abuse of children has come to light, by a writer and her husband. He was a known pedophile when they married, and both their children were among the thirty-some children abused on any axis you care to name. I wasn’t made as ill as some who read the daughter’s account, but it was quite repugnant reading. The fact that she not only abused her own children, but let anyone else who cared to, do so as well; the fact that she knew her husband was a pedophile and turned a blind eye to it, and thought herself above conventional morals and ethics–those all combine to sour my stomach and make it impossible for me to re-read her books, without the image of the children she abused coming to the fore.
When I finally get to a place where I can get to my books and go through them, hers will be purged. I admit that I was beginning to wonder about the odd views expressed about gender relations in her novels, because she seemed to be running on obsolete “scripts”. She was a well-published writer, often seen as a leading light in feminist SF/F, and revered by many in the Pagan/Druid communities.
Reaction is reverberating in those communities, making us ask how to keep this sort of thing from happening at our events. There are a few folk in the greater Pagan/Heathen/Druid/Polytheist etc communities who are banned from any events, as presenters or as attendees, due to their unwelcome sexual acts of violence or their condoning of “initiatory” sex with minors, ritual or not.
She also fostered young female writers’ budding careers, as did Andre Norton and Anne McCaffrey, two women I respect greatly. The latter two never hurt anyone, nor were unkind to any that I know of. What you saw was who they were all the way to the core. Not so the first writer.
Hi, Saffron –
Not sure how to respond to your comments since I have no idea what you’re talking about, but it sounds quite serious. I hope the abusive individuals referenced are in prisons and the abused children are safe and receiving supportive care. The ability to write is a function of brain wiring, education and personal inclination possessed by many, and the current ease of publication makes possible for many the sort of celebrity you describe, in those who actively pursue it. There are no safeguards and most readers have little interest in the private lives of the authors whose books they enjoy. But when an author uses his or her writing ability to gain access to, and celebrity within, contexts such as those you describe and then exploits or abuses vulnerable individuals in those contexts, I agree that clear and immutable sanctions must be imposed. When dangerous criminal activity by authors is proven fact, not just rumor, specific contexts (groups, conventions, etc.) surely have the right to censure, exclude or otherwise establish protective boundaries around their constituents. In the end it’s a matter of taking the time to do the research, isn’t it?