The End of the White Guy Quest

While wondering who to approach with my latest novel, Grave Men, I was reading an agent’s bio when I saw that she didn’t want to be approached with any more “white guy quests.” I chuckled and thought that disqualified me from the slushy pile of hopefuls who might wind up in her inbox, but then I got to thinking. What’s so bad about a white guy quest? I mean, I’ve always liked reading about Odysseus and Huck and Holden and Atticus. I’ve enjoyed their searches for identity, for freedom and for a way to make sense of the chaos of their lives.

But I get it.

In literature, and even more importantly, in the real world white guys enjoy a status they don’t really deserve. And even if some do deserve it, they still benefit from a status that is confirmed and protected by a combination of geography and DNA. We saw this undeserved status on full display over the past two weeks with the unbridled histrionics of Barty O’Kavanaugh, mild mannered federal judge turned indignant pit bull, snarling angrily at the world as he decried the forces evil that were attempting to keep him from a job promotion. Sadly, a lot of angry people cheered him on. But many others watched in amazement, knowing a woman or a person of color could never voice their anger with such rancor. Seriously, before the saliva had even hit the floor, a woman would have been slapped with a badge of shame and a person of color would have been branded a brute.

Could you imagine Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, standing up to the great men of Salem by yelling, by stomping her feet and calling out hypocrites? Maybe she could hold up her daughter, Pearl, and deliver a fierce lecture on the ways men abuse power and how rarely they suffer the same consequences as the women with whom they fall from grace. Or could you imagine Tom Robinson from To Kill a Mockingbird? Instead of meekly offering up “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” when questioned by white lawyers Finch and Gilmer, what if he responded with cold, unfiltered reason. What if he called out the racists in the courtroom and told the lawyer for the prosecution that characterizing him as a brute was, in fact, an act of evil. What if, when he made the mistake of saying he felt sorry for a white woman, Tom Robinson doubled down like an entitled white man, and said that of course he felt sorry for the people who’d accused him: he felt sorry for anyone, black or white, who was so ignorant and so fettered by hate?

I get it because that literary agent is actually a lot like me, fatigued by the status quo, the need to keep fighting the same battles over and over, and, in her case, by the parade of bland protagonists arriving at her door.

I also get it because I’m a Jew. I may be white and male, but I’m something else, too, a faith, a language and a common history that teaches me justice and shapes my fiction. Yet I still struggle with how Jewish to make my Jewish characters. And I’m embarrassed by the fact that so many of them wear Judaism as they would a baseball cap, putting it on when they want to enjoy the status of being “other” and taking it off when they want to blend in. Perhaps, this is just my way of being true to my second-generation Russian father and my second-generation Irish mother, but sometimes it’s hard to view my character’s hiding–that occasional desire to pass, which I know well–as something other than a white guy quest and, perhaps, a poor imitation at that.

But then I take a few steps back, and I see my latest protagonist, a middle-aged father of two named Gershwin, trying his best to not be Huck or Holden or Atticus. Gershwin is not as much a hero as he is an ally. He knows that Atticus Finch defended Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of rape, by fighting the stereotype that Tom was little more than a brute. And, like me, Gershwin would be bothered by the fact that Atticus did little to lift up the man. Atticus was wise and paternal, the center of a great novel and a hero to his daughter. Yet his client never rose above the dirt on his overalls, the spectacle of his deformed arm, his obvious dignity or the kindness that somehow made it even easier for bigots to hate him.

Atticus is a valiant defender but not a true ally. The same can be said for Huck Finn, whose quest is simply to run away from all the ugliness of society. It is a fitting goal for a boy surrounded by so much violence and hate. But despite his charm, Huck will always be a tragic hero, an adolescent who may adore Jim, Miss Watson’s Jim, but who ultimately refuses to let him be a man.

In my novel Gershwin also runs. He runs from a school where he has no future. His quest to build a life may seem familiar on the surface. His identity, however, does not take over the narrative. At crucial moments, he steps to the side and stops talking, stops telling people what he wants. Instead of running toward an answer, he helps others by letting them become new on their own. My challenge with this novel has always been not to let him disappear, to endow him with interesting qualities but also to define him by the women he trusts, the neighbors he relies on and his understanding that he cannot fix things alone.

So, maybe I should submit this novel to an agent who is sick of white guy quests. I could explain to her that it’s really about the end of the white guy quest. Even my title suggests as much, right? Maybe she’d like that. Maybe she’d like how strong women and biracial children wrestle the narrative from Gershwin. How he’s a little like Macduff, but without the kilt or the sword. Maybe she’d like my female characters and enjoy the ending. Maybe she’d even forgive the biggest irony of all, that I, the white male novelist, am now an insider and an outsider, that even if I am capable of good art and real sympathy, I will always be cursed by brothers who take things they’ve neither earned or deserve.

 

 

 

Anatomy Of An Ever-Changing First Line

Correction: I went and changed that first line yet again!   Scroll down to see it.. 7/10/18

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I’ve got a new novel, Grave Men, and as I try to find it a home, I figured I’d share a little content and a little process with folks who stumble across this blog.

Enjoy, Ian

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In an effort to polish my manuscript, I’ve agonized over every character, every detail, every line. And often I’ve looked at the first line and wondered if I’ve found a good way to start this genre-crossing monster of a novel, which I affectionately refer to as my midlife crisis paranormal detective novel. Yikes!

The first line of a short story can be a microcosm of meaning and nuance. Clues to character and conflict abound. Ironies present themselves. Tone and purpose can be established. Or in a few cases red herrings are tossed into the pond for readers to chase. But with this novel I decided to focus mostly on the character of my crusty detective, Babineaux.

I settled on the short sentence, “Babineaux yawned big.”

It’s an image of a content middle-aged man. Once full of angst and anger, once violent and unfocused, Babineaux is now a sleepy bureaucrat, waiting on a pharmacist to deliver his meds so he can enjoy a lazy summer day.

With a single suggestive name, he is the novel’s exile, its wanderer, its searcher, and at times its dragon. His yawn is a sign that he is waking up from a twenty-year slumber. And even though waking dragons tend to be dangerous, the “big” is also a compliment, a sign that the large man with the diminutive attached to his name, has finally grown to the right proportions and that, perhaps, he is now ready for the case being thrown at him.

To learn a little more about Babineaux’s dark quest and how far it will pull him back into his uncertain past, go to my author site and check out the first few scenes of Grave Men.

 

Okay the new first line(s)…

There was no email for Babineaux. At fifty-five he was an investigator who needed a postmark and a paper trail, an oversized bureaucrat who thoroughly enjoyed lining up details and checking grammar, old school, like his bifocals, his big gray beard, and the night-mist blue Mustang he’d roll out of his garage once the snow had melted and it had rained at least twice. He was patient, too, didn’t mind waiting in line at the Post Office to mail his reports. Didn’t get annoyed either when the lady pharmacist butchered his name and took forever to track down his meds.

 

Notes on Last Year on The Mount: Chapter One

The start of this novel has been changed more than my socks. I’ve started with sex, fights, nostalgic reflections on lilac bushes. Over the years it took to write this novel–and it took many (I’ll get to that some other day), I kept tinkering to find a hook I liked and figure out just what I was going for.

This past year I taught To Kill a Mockingbird, A Separate Peace and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, all fine books for a ninth-grade honors English class. And I realized that all of them started with a narrator looking back at an important place in their lives and searching for a little clarity. There’s no older wiser narrator in my tale, but I think the novel still maintains an ironic, humorous and often confessional feel to it.

So why did it take so long to finish this novel? Well, to me the reason is simple. I’ve been working on this novel for a long time, but I didn’t really start it until about three years ago. Huh? Rather than writing three or four novels to figure out how to do it, I just kept rewriting the same one until it became what I wanted it to be: a vague but perfect copy of the original work I’d imaged. And a chronicle of my more recent life–metaphorically of course–as a teacher and a husband.

For example, for a long time I didn’t have a clear antagonist in the novel. But teaching allows you to see people and their best and worst. You get to see stellar examples of humility and dedication. And, unfortunately, you also get to see stellar examples of vanity as well. My profession attracts all kinds: lovers and haters, introverts and show offs, team players and minor megalomaniacs. So why not put them all to use and have a little fun? After all, I bet all of us know a Goldie Remlap and a Don DeWillum. (I’ve worked with many during my career.)

Thus, the start of this novel helps me laugh at my first, strange years as a teacher, for it was a time when I was shocked by colleagues, inspired by students and often my own worst enemy.