BRAVO EQMM & FORGIVE THE RANT

by Melodie Johnson Howe

Black Mask is back in Ellery Queen.

The first short story is Dashiell Hammett’s “Bodies Piled Up.” He takes the discovery of the body in the closet and turns that moment into dark satire. It’s great to be back in San Francisco, with the Continental Op dealing with “dirty rats” and guys with names like Porky Grout. And it’s wonderful to be back in a time when a closet is sometimes referred to as a clothespress. This story has one of the great shoot-outs.

Bravo to Janet Hutchings.

In the Editors’ fine essay about the new edition this was written:

“Just as the original Black Mask Magazine was hard-hitting, readers of our new series should expect the tales contained under this banner to be edgy, and sometimes more violent and harsher in language than other EQMM stories.”

Alas, this paragraph disturbed me. Have we become so sensitive in the year 2007 that the Editors feel the need to warn their readership? I understand Janet Hutchings’ responsibility to her magazine and her readers. As one of her writers I abide by her standards. And I understand why this paragraph was written. She has all kinds of readers to think about. But it still saddens me.

Has everyone in America turned into a swooning Victorian female? Are our bodices laced too tight? The reader enters a short story or a novel at his or her own risk. And the reader can stop reading whenever he or she wants do. God knows I have done it many times. But of course, I am not a publisher. Janet does not want her readers to stop reading because they are offended. My responsibility as a writer is different.

In one of the workshops I taught I observed that the writers were too nice in their writing. It was as if they didn’t want to offend anybody. Their characters accepted situations in a benign way and plodded on. Yes, I could chalk this up to bad writing, and a lot of it was. But some of the better writers were doing the same thing. How does this tamping down of emotion and passion and conflict and anger happen? We’re in a society that is supposed to be so open. This isn’t politeness. This is brain numbing political correctness. I find it in myself. I write about Hollywood but I rarely have a Jewish character in my short stories. Why? Certainly not because they don’t exist in Hollywood. I’m afraid I’ll create a cliché, or worse, a caricature. That I will offend. I think I’m too good of a writer to let that happen, but I still stop myself from exploring all the possibilities. On the other hand, how many white protestant business men do we writers turn into evil-doers? That too is a cliché. But it’s okay to do it. It’s PC.

URRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

Blandness is death. I know young women in college Lit classes who aren’t reading Madame Bovary because it’s not relevant to women now. In other words Madame Bovary is not PC. Really? Then who are all those women wandering around department stores searching for the perfect dress to go out with the perfect man to keep the perfect romantic dream going? They are Madame Bovarys. They may have sex on the first date — you know, get it over with — but their dreams haven’t changed that much. And as Madame Bovary discovered, there is always a price to pay.

Now I’ve ranted myself into a tizzy and I just started out to say some nice things about EQMM. Maybe the tolerance we need is for good genuine writing, even if it offends.