I have read many mystery novels over the years, primarily focusing on the ongoing releases of my favourite authors. A much admired one was PD James who passed away recently. I have a difficult time replacing her.
Browsing through bookstores is pleasurable. One tradition I have is to always scan the rack of recent releases. It took more than a glance before I noticed an unusual array of books at Coles in the Pembroke Mall. My interest piqued seeing so many titles with a female pronoun (Girl, Woman, Mistress, etc.). I counted 28 books on the display including the eight with a female pronoun and seven more with a female protagonist. These 58 percent of the books, mostly thrillers, referenced stories of females and were written by women authors, shutting out the males by a large margin.
The earliest novel that caught my attention was the popular “Girl on the Train”. In this psychological chiller, Rachel, the main character, hits a new high in unreliability. For one thing, her whole life has become a lie. Her rigid commuting schedule stops before the house she used to share with Tom, her ex-husband, before he left her. She still is obsessed with him. “What she knew” was a taut psychological thriller about a mother searching for her missing son Ben, who vanished in thin air. In a heartbeat, everything changed! In another, “The Perfect Girl” was about a 17-year-old musical prodigy with a genius IQ. Giving a recital that her mother had planned for moths, Maria is found dead. Others were “The woman in Cabin 10”, “About the Girl Before”, “Death’s Witness”, etc.
While taking notes in Coles, a couple of staff were well aware of this latest trend. They confirmed that it was ‘The Girl on the Train’ that had started a wave of female authors publishing thrillers and well-written stories about girls and women.”
“Women writers remain disadvantaged by a male-dominated literary world in which men do not want them to succeed”, a veteran female novelist has claimed. Here in Canada, a literary conflict is brewing. A University of Toronto lecturer, David Gilmour, himself a novelist, gave an interview to Hazlitt magazine, in which he explained that he’s not interested in teaching books by women. According to Gilmour, he only teaches the best. “I don’t love women writers enough to teach them,” he explains, “If you want women writers go down the hall. What I teach is guys.” Whether an active or passive attitude, it is discrimination.
Men may still be top of the annual list of the highest earning authors, but women are hot on their heels. This year more female authors have reached the top 20 highest earners, according to Forbes. Suzanne Collins, author of ‘the Hunger Games’ is 10th, earning about $17M, while Harry Potter author JK Rowling is 11th, earning $14M last year.
Although Fifty Shades of Grey author EL James is not on the list yet, it’s believed she will be near the top of next year’s rankings. She’s estimated to have earned a staggering $1M a week during the height of her erotic novels’ popularity. Fifty Shades is UK’s biggest selling book of all time. The sequels, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, are rapidly contributing to Ms. James’ income. The highest earning woman on the list is Nora Roberts in seventh place. She has written 200 books, including the ‘In Death’ series.
In numerous studies conducted to compare women writers to their male counterparts it was observed that, “Their texts exhibit conditions usually very different from those produced by men.” It is not the subject matter or politics of the author, but her gender. In academic writing, there are marked differences between them in syntax and structure. The sentences of women writers often contain more clauses than sentences meaning more complicated ideas. Men generally present just one idea per sentence.
The upsurge in women publications is likely a penchant for the mystery genre rather than the romantic one. Overall their book sales are encroaching on the males. Although there is a marked difference in the nuances of writing styles between the two sexes, there is no reason why this shouldn’t remain as status quo.
The novels I have read over the years, mostly by my favourite authors and mostly a mystery theme, are irrelevant to whether a female or male author wrote them. The story is the significant point, it has no beginning or end!
