Handselling books is one of my favorite parts of my job. There’s nothing more gratifying than talking about a book I enjoyed, seeing a customer’s eyes light up, and hearing her say, “That sounds great. I think I’ll get that one.” It gives me a little thrill every time. It’s especially fun when the customer asks me, “What’s your favorite recently?” That’s my moment to pitch a book I loved or really believe in. Often it’s my chance to talk up a book I think deserves more attention than it’s getting, one the customer might not have discovered on her own.
I understand all reading tastes are different, so I’m usually not disappointed when I recommend a book and my customer doesn’t buy it. But in our neck of the woods, sometimes I’m unable to sell books I love for reasons I still don’t understand. In my time at Paulina Springs Books, I’ve developed an almost fail-safe prediction for what type of book I can’t handsell, and it’s this: If the book has a gay main character, no one will buy it.
I can hear you now, urban booksellers, gasping in dismay, or possibly squawking like chickens: “How can that be? Is it that conservative down there? I guess Central Oregon really is full of rednecks!” I know you might say things like this, because I hear these remarks every time I go to Portland. From my perspective, most of my customers are neither rednecks nor conservative. Most read books on all kinds of topics. So I still don’t know what makes their eyes glaze over and slide away from me when they realize, from something I’ve said or from a book’s back cover, that the book is about a gay person.
I probably found this most frustrating with Robin and Ruby by K.M. Soehnlein. The advance reader was my find of the year. Brother and sister characters Robin and Ruby (yes, Robin is gay) became so real to me that I missed them when the book was over. Soehnlein’s writing is remarkably immediate and vivid, and I thought it would be great for book club discussions. But I think I managed to handsell all of two.
I was also disappointed that I couldn’t sell Emma Donoghue’s graceful, moving novel Landing, which is about the tension between loving a place and loving someone who doesn’t live in that place. I think this is a theme many of us can identify with. But women readers of literary fiction, whom I saw as the perfect target group, acted like they couldn’t possibly relate to the story. When Donoghue’s novel Room came out and hit the bestseller lists, everyone was buzzing about what a brilliant writer she is—which I had tried to tell them with Landing! I guess it’s just so much easier to relate to a woman who’s held captive by a psychopath than it is to relate to two women in love.
When I expressed my frustration to one of my co-workers, he suggested I not mention that the main character is gay when talking up the book. I try this sometimes, but I always feel odd about it, as if I’m keeping the character in the closet. It’s relatively easy not to mention Lord John’s sexuality when pitching Diana Gabaldon’s Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, and to focus on the book as a historical intrigue. But one of the things I found most compelling about the book is how Lord John handles his life as a gay man in 1740’s London. Interestingly, Lord John has done well for himself on our staff pick table and is a pretty easy handsell. Is this because I’m not mentioning Lord John is gay, or just because people like historical fiction? I don’t know.
I’ve been disturbed by the lack of response from my customers to these books for a number of reasons. I worry that our community has some homophobia lurking in it. I’m frustrated that people are missing out on great literature because of this detail. I get a little discouraged when I try over and over to sell a book I liked so well and get no results. I have moments when I feel like writing into my reviews of these books, “Read the damn book—it won’t kill you!”
“Why try to sell people these books if you know they’re resistant to them?” you might well ask. First of all, it’s far too easy as a bookseller to slip into trying to talk up the books you think are an easy sell and to ignore your own passions. That takes away some of the joy in our work. Also, literature changes culture. A literature professor told me part of the job of the artist is to make new or different ideas normal and acceptable. K.M. Soehnlein once called me his “handselling advance guard.” Maybe if I keep plugging these books, some people will read them and find that becoming attached to these characters lets them see how alike we all are, how common our human experiences. Most of all, though, I keep trying to sell these books because I still hope for that thrilling moment when I know what I’ve said resonates with the customer and she takes the book from my hands.
Amanda MacNaughton is a front-line bookseller and the events manager at Paulina Springs Books in Sisters and Redmond. MacNaughton has interviewed Jane Kirkpatrick, Anjali Banerjee, Marcus J. Borg and Brian Doyle for NWBL.
Unfortunately, I think Lord John is selling just because it’s Gabaldon. The lowest common denominator at work. I’ve noticed it’s a little harder to sell books like these as well. I don’t think it necessarily means homophobia. Unlike watching a television show, books require an investment in time and energy. People are pickier. If they are heterosexual, and haven’t yet read and enjoyed something, it’s kinda tough to get them to switch. Or, they may feel they won’t be able to relate to the character. Or, they may think they’re going to read something graphic that makes them uncomfortable. Most people don’t read as voraciously and openly as many booksellers. These same people may happily watch movies and television with gay characters, though.
This is certainly sad and disappointing, and probably indicates a certain amount of homophobia or an assumption on the part of readers that they “won’t relate” to the characters or subject matter.
Having said that, I tend to agree with your co-worker and wonder should we purposefully mention when a character in a book happens to be gay?
Take the book ‘Robin and Ruby’, for example, where you said the characters became so real to you: let’s pretend that the characters in the books you’re trying to recommend are, in fact, real. How would you introduce them at a party in ‘real life’? I doubt you would say “Hey this is my friend Robin and he’s gay.” (a) because it’s not our job to ‘out’ somebody else and, (b) because there is so much more to a person and a character in a book than their sexuality. We never describe somebody as our straight friend or our white friend and yet we always seem to classify in terms of gender, sexuality and race. I think that that’s where the real homophobia (and racism) lies: our compulsion to define people by a perceived difference when the aim should surely be equality and treating everyone the same – in real life or in a book.
First, bless you — and here I speak for my people — for your good works. I sold books for awhile in Orange County, California, i.e. The Most Reactionary Place on Earth. If you don’t know it, it’s kind of a Tea Party theme park atmosphere; yes, you can get your ticket punched to ride the Handbasket to Hell with me, but you can also hang with stoners and surfer chicks in Little Saigon. Crazy, huh? Anyway, the point was that for every lady who wanted to buy all our Harry Potter books to burn them at church (true story) there was always some cool kid just aching to find something to read not from the approved list. I can still remember the girl in Little House braids I introduced to Jeanette Winterson.
I’m not saying I would willingly live outside the Green Zone anymore, but if you have to, well then, again, bless you for plugging away at winning hearts & minds to literature, civilization, tolerance and the American way! Good on you.
Central Oregon has a mix of people, some are conservative, others are not. At Sunriver Books & Music we stock all of Armstead Maupin’s wonderful Tales of the City series, one of my personal favorite books this year is Jonathan Irving’s In One Person and it is doing well in our store. Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman was our May selection in the Mystery Book Club and was enjoyed by the book club members. We are about an hour away from Sisters so maybe our readers are a bit more liberal? I agree some readers are resistance to novels with gay characters, but we do stock books with gay characters and they are embraced by our readers.
I have noticed more gay characters showing up in mainstream literature in the past few years, and I take heart that this is a sign of cultural acceptance. No longer must a character’s sexuality be the sole focus & purpose of that character’s presence in a book; he can be treated as a person not defined by his sexuality. I recall reading Frank Bruni’s wonderful memoir Born Round and being pleasantly surprised that it was a book in which a gay man recounts his life without focusing on his sexuality any more than on his search for satisfaction in any other aspect of his life.
Thank you for all these wonderful comments! They are valuable and thought-provoking. I like Deborah’s point about introducing characters just as you would introduce a friend. I do feel that with “Robin and Ruby” (have you read it?) Robin’s sexuality is a huge and integral part of the story. I would not introduce him as “This is Robin, my gay friend,” but if he and George were together at the party, I would certainly introduce them as a couple: “This is Robin-and-George,” or something like that. In this way, I would be treating them like any other couple, and yet, it would be crystal clear to the other person that they are gay. In other words, while it may not be my job to “out” the character, I don’t want to leave them in the closet either.
Deon, your comment is very interesting to me also. “In One Person” is also doing well at our store. I think it’s because it’s on the bestseller list and has gotten so much hype. Sales make sales.
Brad, thanks for your comments! They are very meaningful to me. I’m touched by them, much as I was very pleased by K.M. Soehnlein’s comment to me.