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Books by Jeanette Winterson are visible in a bonfire
Jeanette Winterson says she was “incandescent” when she burned her own books (Photo: Twitter)

OPINIONBooksJune 8, 2021

Notes on a book burning – and a defence of readers of ‘wimmin’s fiction’

Books by Jeanette Winterson are visible in a bonfire
Jeanette Winterson says she was “incandescent” when she burned her own books (Photo: Twitter)

The latest bonfire on the literary scene speaks volumes about the way we categorise books – and readers, argues bestselling wimmin writer Catherine Robertson.

On Friday, the English writer Jeanette Winterson set fire to a bunch of new editions of her books because she “hated the cosy little domestic blurbs on them” that contained “nothing playful or strange or the ahead of time stuff that’s in there”. She tweeted about it, and told the Guardian she gave most of the offending books to charity, but needed the symbolism of the burning as she was “incandescent at the time”.

She said: “The Passion was both a way of reimagining the historical novel and it had a cross dressed narrator. Written on the Body had a non-binary narrator. The Powerbook was an early virtual and blended reality experience, that bent time as well as gender. The blurbs had none of this and turned the books into the tame and the obvious.”

I can sympathise with her frustration that her covers don’t appear to do justice to the book inside. This issue is not unique to Winterson. Covers are a marketing decision made by the publisher: what readers do we think this book will appeal to? What cues do we want to send them though images and typefaces, so that they know this is their kind of book? Authors can write their own blurbs – I have. But they rarely get a say in what the cover looks like. I once sent my publisher images I believed would be great. My request was denied. 

But my sympathy ran out when Winterson also complained, in her tweet, that the blurbs turned her into “wimmins fiction of the worst kind!” Those six words contain a shed-load to unpack, but I’ll give it a go because I’m pissed off.

First up, I’m going to assume you’re not clear on what “wimmins” fiction actually is. Very briefly, all fiction is classified as either commercial or literary. Commercial fiction is written primarily to entertain rather than to create high art, more focused on story than style. Within commercial fiction there are genres – sub-classifications like crime or science fiction. Women’s fiction is a genre, and whoever came up with it was clearly tired of making distinctions because the range of it is enormous. Doesn’t matter if a book is serious or funny, historical or contemporary, town or country. If it’s written by a woman, the main characters are women and it talks about women shit then it’s women’s fiction. 

What women’s fiction books do have in common, it seems, is that Jeanette Winterson hates them. She thinks they’re bad and that some of them are “the worst”. Winterson told the Guardian that a friend had said the new blurbs made her sound like Mills and Boon. Guess we know how to define “worst”. I don’t know how Winterson categorises her books – literary fiction with a touch of the “strange”, most probably. But it’s obvious how she views them: a cut way, way above the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad women’s fiction.

Amazingly, given that lead up, I’m not here to defend women’s fiction. I’m not here to be outraged on behalf of its authors. Who I am outraged for are the readers. 

When Elizabeth Gilbert published The Signature of all Things, a man at a literary event told her that she must be pleased to now be attracting “a better class of reader”. He meant what Winterson means: those who read a certain type of book, like Eat, Pray, Love or a Mills and Boon, are cabbages. Unsophisticated, undiscerning, unintelligent human brassica. 

These lumpen collards also happen to be primarily women. I’d take any odds that the man addressing Elizabeth Gilbert believed her lesser class of reader consisted of only women. Women do read more fiction than men – in the US, UK and Canada, women account for 80% of fiction sales. Mills and Boon readers are 84% women. But it is insulting and plain ignorant to assume that women who enjoy commercial fiction are not smart enough to read Jeanette Winterson. 

Look at this phrase – “cosy little domestic blurbs”. Cosy. Little. Domestic. Words that have been used to demean and diminish women since the invention of the house. Winterson calls herself a feminist and writes about issues that affect women. But it seems she still considers some women less worthy than others. 

Our own CK Stead (I know, I’m sorry) once said that he didn’t care if only four percent of New Zealanders read New Zealand fiction as long as the four percent who read his books were intelligent. Winterson is saying much the same. It’s as if the artistic integrity of her books would be sullied if a reader of women’s fiction opened one up. The cover blurb should never appeal to one of those people – it should make it clear that the book is only for the reading elite. God forbid Winterson ends up on a bookshelf next to Joanna Trollope.

Of course she’s wrong – simple as. Women with PhDs read Mills and Boon. Surgeons and activists and company directors read women’s fiction. Many of them have also probably read at least one Jeanette Winterson. I have a Masters degree. I read Frankisstein. I didn’t like it much. But I hear Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is brilliant.  

In a 2017 Guardian article, Winterson was one of several women asked to define the books that made them a feminist. She talked about Adrienne Rich’s early poems, and her essays. “There is a great one about her winning the Yale Younger Poets prize and being patronised by WH Auden (women just write about themselves … blah blah), and suddenly I understood about women’s voices, creativity, silence. Crucially in the opening Thatcher era of the individual, I realised that patriarchy is a collective problem – a structural problem.”

Yes, it is Jeanette. I agree. And you do nothing to help dismantle that structure if you insist on consigning whole groups of women to the intellectual dustbin, and treating them with disdain because of what you think they prefer to read. 

(Image: Charlotte Muru-Lanning)
(Image: Charlotte Muru-Lanning)

BooksJune 4, 2021

Hinemoa Elder’s book is getting the Oprah effect

(Image: Charlotte Muru-Lanning)
(Image: Charlotte Muru-Lanning)

A mention from Oprah’s Book Club is manna from publishing heaven. It can burst a book onto the mainstream and shoot sales sky-high. Last week, the first book by Dr Hinemoa Elder, Aroha, was included on one of the club’s lists.

After the word arrived, staff stood around the counter at Unity Books on Auckland’s High Street last week talking in excited tones: a local book had been mentioned by Oprah’s Book Club. Two customers overheard, asked what it was and on the strength of the Oprah tip, bought the book on the spot.

That book was Hinemoa Elder’s Aroha, published late last year. And it’s the first time Unity Bookshop owner Jo McColl can think of that a New Zealand book has been sprinkled with the Oprah’s Book Club magic.

That a mention of Oprah can achieve such influence, more than 10,000 kilometres from her headquarters and a decade after her final talk show aired is testament to the enduring cultural resonance of every part of the sprawling Oprah empire, and especially that of her book club. 

Oprah’s Book Club was launched in September 1992 on her television show. The first book to be recommended was Jacquelyn Mitchard’s “The Deep End of the Ocean”. 

After her talk-show ended, the club was relaunched in 2012 as Oprah’s Book Club 2.0; a digital version of the once televised segment that could be accessed in multiple forms through social media and E-Readers.

Last month, prior to the official announcement, The Mental Health Foundation New Zealand contacted Dr Hinemoa Elder (Ngāti Kuri, Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) to let her know that her book Aroha, which explains 52 whakatauki, had been selected for one of Oprah’s lists. 

It was only once she had been tagged in the Instagram post last week that Elder knew for sure her book had been included. “It felt so exhilarating to be part of this club that is so influential.” 

Shaun Robinson, chief executive of the Foundation, contributed the book to the list which was curated by mental health experts around the world for the club. It ‘s not the core Oprah Book Club list, but it’s still a big deal.

The Oprah’s Book Club Instagram post featuring Dr Hinemoa Elder’s book, Aroha.

A mention like this from Oprah’s Book Club is a godsend for writers and publishers alike. The famous interviewer’s sticker of approval can make careers, propel book-sales and help books reach a far broader audience.

Toni Morrison is a case in point. Morrison held huge cultural standing before gaining mainstream popularity, but it’s hard to ignore the role that Oprah’s Book Club had in kickstarting that broader pop-culture success. When Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye, was first published in 1970, it sold 2,000 copies. After being featured as one of Oprah’s Book Club picks in 2000, it sold 800,000 copies.

Post-talk-show Oprah has taken a step back from the overwhelming influence she once held. However, sporadic interviews like that interview with Meghan and Harry continue to fan the flames of her enduring cultural resonance. She remains the original fairy-godmother of taste-making.

Elder was inspired to write her first sole-authored book, Aroha in part through her work as a psychiatrist. “I see that in my work and life, human beings are in a lot of pain,” Elder explains. “I could see one source of that was to do with our relationship with the planet, especially for Māori”. Elder saw that whakatauki were one small way to help people reconnect to the environment.

Aroha had already proved a resounding success, says Claire Murdoch, head of publishing at Penguin. The book has consistently ranked in top 10 lists since it was published last year.

The book has sold 25,000 copies to date – “a very sound figure,” Murdoch says. Ordinarily, a non-fiction work selling 5,000 copies would be a figure to celebrate. It sets Aroha up as likely one of the bestsellers in New Zealand for 2020 and 2021. Publishers are struggling more generally to keep up with demand for Te Ao Māori books, says Murdoch. That demand for and recognition of indigenous knowledge frameworks “says a lot about the world now”.

As for the mention by Oprah, Murdoch says it’s too soon to tell exactly what the effects will be, but she speculates that its biggest impact could be overseas. “It’s well known to be instrumental in taking books to that next level in terms of wider audience engagement.”

And it’s part of a wider mechanism that gets people reading good books; talented book sellers, radio interviews, celebrity endorsements, good reads reviews, teachers, librarians and more, she says. “Any opportunity to take a great book to the biggest possible audience is a happy, happy thing by me.”