It will remain a mystery

[cimorene]

Very strangely, I'm reading a book that incorporates a forbidden lesbian romance in 1950s America and finding it all so weird and sort of stiff that I kept thinking it felt like a man had written it. The author's name is female, but I went and checked just to make sure, and she definitely is! It's not even a pen name at all!

So now I'm trying to analyze what it was that made me think that. The penultimate straw was when a glamorous spy packed lipstick and no other makeup to wear with a full length designer evening gown at a very swanky event even though she's a natural redhead. The last one was just how flat the first sexual encounter between the protagonists turned out to be - and of course I know this is a normal problem with published fiction in contrast to fanfiction, not the strongest argument (I was just kind of like 'Seriously, this too? Why is this scene here at all if that's how you felt about it?!' at that point).

But I can't put my finger on what the things that nagged at me were before that. And I can't remember ever having this happen before! Every time I have thought, "Wait - did a man write this?" he did.

The book is called The Secrets We Kept, and it's the debut novel of Lara Prescott, a spy novel about the publication of Doctor Zhivago (I went looking for female spy fiction recommendations last week), and the subject of a preposterous plagiarism lawsuit in Britain a couple of years ago: it's based on real historical events, and the author of a historical book was trying to claim plagiarism on the basis of the historical events used, which have been written about extensively before. The lawsuit anecdote aroused my sympathy, obviously. I don't regret reading this - it isn't bad, or objectifying or anything like that: it wasn't that kind of 'Did a man write this?' It is a debut with some awkwardness that I feel may improve on later efforts, and I keep being annoyed by the feeling that it's exaggeratedly proud of itself for what is not actually extraordinary cleverness; but I can't seem to tease out what's behind that impression either. The only things I can put my finger on are excessive point of view switches for my taste, and some bits that seem leaden to the mind's ear.

Comments

[james]

I've had that experience before, thinking a man must have written it, and it usually turns out to be a combination of: the female writer grew up reading mostly books written by men and that's what she's trying to emulate; a male editor who guides the book's final form; and sometimes a publisher who is aiming at a male audience who requests/requires things be done a certain way.

It's hard to tell, unless you can chat with the author, what's going on.

[cimorene]

Oh, that makes sense. It would be tough to find out in that case, sadly.