Smut As Our Savior

Now that we’ve broken the champagne bottle over the bow of [tk] reviews (so to speak), I have the distinct honor of steering this blog through its first week of existence. The search for a worthy subject with which to kick things off was a little anxiety-inducing, but as so often happens when you least expect it, Lady Luck threw me a crumb in the form of this article from the MSNBC.com website: “Erotica Gives Book Publishing a Surprising Boost.” When Gawker.com later picked it up under the headline “Erotica May Save Publishing,” I knew we were in business.

I am actually not entirely unfamiliar with the topic, as back in a desperate moment of job searching I actually had two interviews with the editor of several romance and erotica imprints (she, they, and the publishing company will go unnamed). I knew something about romance novels – my special talent in high school was being able to open them straight to the sex scenes – but after my first meeting with this woman I realized I was in waaayyy over my head. Those Harlequin novels of my teen years were primarily old ones donated by aging alumnae, and at their titillating peak they at most threw out a couple of awkward euphemisms (“manroot,” anyone?) and possibly a nipple. The characters were nearly always white-bread Americans, maybe with a dark and mysterious European to mix things up every now again, and the heroine always married her man in the end.

Things now, however, are very different. As is par for the course with editorial interviews, I was given a manuscript to read and report upon: the story began with a woman discovering a naked but very tanned-and-chiseled demon unconscious in her garden. After about twenty pages, I knew that drastic measures were required – I put on some very large sunglasses and hoofed it down to my local Barnes & Noble for a red-faced afternoon of research.

The sheer acreage of shelves devoted to “paranomal romance” made it clear that the naked demon of my sample manuscript was in no way new or shocking; in fact, he was boringly mainstream. Vampires have been sexualized since forever, but werewolves, warlocks, and witches clearly have needs too – and people like to read about them being filled. However, some time spent surfing the web this weekend suggests that the hottest things now are actually “shapeshifters,” adult re-imaginings of the animaguses (animagii?) of Harry Potter fame. I also recently heard the editor of the Sookie Stackhouse series speak at a (work-sponsored, no less!) panel about the difficulties of breaking out zombie erotica. It’s obviously quite difficult to make necrotic body parts sexy, but I have faith that some gifted scribe out there will manage it.

The MSNBC article about erotica “saving” publishing highlights the sub-genre of “urban” erotica, although that’s hardly a new phenomenon either. Specialist small presses have been churning out this stuff for years, a sort of “streets to the sheets” school that reads like sexed-up novelizations of Grand Theft Auto. However, its mainstream explosion is clearly recent: suddenly, all the major houses (including mine) are boasting profitable imprints. I actually found a galley of one not too long ago on the give-away shelf here and gave it to a colleague as a gag gift, a decision I quickly came to regret. These books make no apologies for their content – and rightly so – but further exploration corroborates my field discovery that they are very intense in their depictions of sex and violence, and the way the women in them are treated. If you are not prepared for it, or willing/able to handle the distinction between fantasy and more nuanced reality, some of this stuff can be quite shocking. But I admit I’m kind of curious to see one of the books that Noire (the writer specifically mentioned) has written in collaboration with 50 Cent.

It’s not strictly erotica, so indulge me as I throw in a nod to the emerging marketplace trend of Amish romance. There was an explosion of coverage last year that seems to have only stoked the fire of demand: strongly wedded to a central theme of chastity and abstinence before marriage, this genre seem to have tapped America’s “Twilight” nerve, the one that responds far more to titillation than to actual tongues entwining. Some digging around on Amazon.com does reveal a few, Kindle-only, Amish erotica titles – maybe this will be my inducement to finally fork over $299.99 and get one?

Werewolves, gangstas, and buggy-driving babes were not the only characters I encountered during that fateful afternoon: I spent a good forty-five minutes just browsing the aisles, trying to take it all on board. The truth was (and still is) that, although I like to giggle about it as much as the next person, this sort of stuff isn't really my cup of tea -- if I want to get my literary rocks off I prefer D. H. Lawrence or Anaïs Nin -- but once I got over myself I actually had quite a good time. I even took off my sunglasses, deciding that I didn't give a damn who saw me paging my way through Candy Licker.

My report got written, but despite my graduate-level research skills I didn't get the job. Don’t shed any tears, though -- this rejection was in the end a good thing, for many reasons, and the experience still resonates positively with me. I gained insight into a genre that's often misunderstood, and (I like to think) a new perspective on the American psyche. New York City publishing circles might snicker at these books, but the sales figures tell a different truth: people love this stuff wholeheartedly, and consistently demonstrate it with their wallets.

There is obviously a special alchemy at work here, a magic enacted by very intelligent and interesting people -- just like the editor with whom I interviewed -- and if it is helping publishing over its rough patch, I couldn’t be happier. Like any community facing hard times, we've all got to pitch in and concentrate what unites us rather than on what separates us from each other. We can't afford to ignore the strengths and achievements of our peers, even if they are not the ones for which we ourselves particularly yearn. And, speaking of yearning, don’t forget to keep an eye out for this tasty treat (culled fresh from Publisher’s Lunch), which foretells of a whole new interspecies collaboration:

Leanna Ellis's FORSAKEN, first in the Plain Fear series in which a young Amish woman mourning the mysterious “death” of her beloved, now a vampire, must choose between two brothers, between good and evil, between a lasting love and the damnation of her soul.