I've enjoyed all the discussions of gender-related items, and
once again I've realized that I'm among the least analytical
of readers on this list. When I read a book, either I like it
or I don't. That's about all I think about it before I move
on to another book. I never really stop to consider whether
it was written by a man or a woman, or at least I never used
to before people started making an issue of it.
My only skirmish in the gender wars came at a signing I was
doing at Murder by the Book in Houston a good while ago.
While I was sitting at the table, a woman went to the counter
with quite a stack of books (not including mine, of course).
She looked over at me, sneered, turned back to the clerk and
said, in a rather loud voice, "I never buy books by men. I
read only women writers, and I know I'll never run out of
books to buy because more and more by women are being
published all the time." It was almost as if she thought I
should be ashamed of myself for having written a book in the
first place. I've thought of many snappy comebacks over the
years, but naturally I didn't think of any of them until it
was far too late. Anyway, I hope she's buying and reading
Ruth Birmingham's books, or the ones that A. W. Gray is
writing under a pen name that slips my mind right now. Gray
told me a couple of years ago that the ones under the female
name sell around twice as many copies as the books he wrote
as himself, and in fact I haven't seen any under his own
byline in a good while. I'm sure there's a lesson there for
all of us.
Bill Crider
At 08:13 PM 05/28/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>Anyone have the URL to this interview?
>
>volente Deo,
>
>Anthony Dauer
>Alexandria, Virginia
>
>"... down these mean streets a man must go
>who is not himself mean, who is neither
>tarnished or afraid."
> -Raymond Chandler (1888-1959)
>
>Hard-Boiled Noir eZine
> http://www.adau.net/judas_ezine/
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>
>
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