*Insert Literary Blog Name Here* (noun): a small corner of the blagosphere dedicated to books, writing, and kidlit. Come for the book lists. Stay for the coffee.
Once upon a time, YA literature was simple. Not Clifford the Big Red Dog simple, but rather an easy to define, reasonably limited group of books aimed at, well, young adults. Much of this literature is simplistic by today’s standards; the higher level Nancy Drew and Sweet Valley High franchises just don’t cut it anymore.
Nancy Drew and the Wakefield twins may be very Mary Sue, Angsty-Sues–and wannabe Angsty-Sues seem to be the new trend. Bella Swan (Twilight) is the ultimate emo fangirl; Serena van der Woodsen (Gossip Girl) is a whine in skimpy clothing. Neither, of course, has roots in real life, instead catering to (pandering to?) readers who want to be the It Girl, the girl cool enough to charm a vampire, or smooth enough to have blase rich boys fall at her feet.
But what about the harder, grittier books are seeping into today’s YA–titles such as Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls (bulimia and anorexia, no holds barred) and Gail Giles’ Whatever Happened to Cass McBride (dysfunctional family; one son suicides, the other kidnaps and buries a girl alive)? Few, if any, teenage girls dream of being bulimic–fewer still are interested in being buried alive. These books are about catharsis, education, issues we need to put out there and talk about.
Despite their intrinsic darkness, though, Wintergirls and Whatever Happened to Cass McBride, are middle of the road issues books. This isn’t to say their content isn’t lacking, isn’t devastating–it is. But for some authors, sending a character into the depths of the earth in a balsa wood box isn’t enough.
Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan’s retelling of Snow White and Rose Red, is 494 pages of incest, miscarriage, more incest, gang rape, attempted suicide, and general abuse. Lanagan’s descriptions of abuse are evasive yet visceral–details are left mostly to the imagination. Feelings are not.
US YA cover
While I understand the need to put characters in difficult situations (how else will they grow?), TM goes above and beyond. At 28 years old, I struggled with the brutality in Lanagan’s story; at one point, I put it down, and have not yet picked it up again. Friends assure me that I do not want to. And yet, at odd hours, Lanagan’s story comes back to me–I wonder at the horror of Liga’s miscarriage and worry at her attempted suicide. I try to resolve the reason Lanagan puts her character through not just incest, but gang rape, searching for a glimmer of positivity, a single word of hope. Yet Liga’s “rescue” and haven are flat to me–I can only think of what terror Lanagan will inflict next.
PW lists the book as 14 and up, a categorization that comes from the publisher (Knopf). Prior to reading the book, I’d have classed it with Sarah Dessen’s Dreamland, an exploration of teenage girls and abusive relationships. Post-read, I wonder what Knopf was thinking.
There’s a reason sayings about the futility of life are popular–not everything goes to plan. Women are raped; wars are fought; loved ones die. As the fairy tale says, the only truism of life is that this, too, shall pass. But is it fair to heap all of the terrible things in life into one book, wrap it with a pretty bow, then hand it to a girl of 14? At what point is the darkness in a YA novel too much? And is it a publisher’s decision, a parents’ decision, or a reader’s decision?
In a review for the UK paper, The Guardian, author Meg Rosoff writes,
Lanagan handles a variety of points of view and a large cast of humans and animals with great delicacy and restraint. Her characters grapple with the terrible damages inflicted by life and the inevitability of death, and although she offers them (and us) no easy consolation, the book celebrates human resilience and unexpected gifts: “children touched with charm, clueless that it was within them; maids whose frivolous fortune-telling always held a grain of truth; mothers and wives whose soups were as good as medicines; men who attracted luck, or women who sped healing”. Hope, for Liga, resides in her children and their talents, but at no little cost to her own heart’s desire.
Is it fair to suggest to girls–because TM is clearly a girls’ book–that when bad things happen, everything will be okay if they subsume their individuality, their hurts, to further the interest of their children? Post-suicide attempt, Liga continues her life not for herself, but for her child–a noble act. But would her change of mind be any less noble if it were the result of recognized self-worth?
Are Gossip Girl and Twilight good reading? Yes, no, maybe. Any book that encourages reading amongst teens, particularly reluctant ones, is a good book. Literacy rates are on the decline; books are falling by the wayside, landing next to the hit-and-run victims in Grand Theft Auto 2. And books that face the reality of life for many–books such as Push (Sapphire), are riveting reading, the sort of reading-that-sucks-you-in-and-holds-you-down-until-you-can’t-breathe-and-that’s-okay-because-you-don’t-want-to-if-it-means-giving-up-this-book. But fairy tales–true fairy tales–with their veil of magic and unreality and their secret dark ways are often cruel enough without treatments such as Lanagan’s.
Foreign adult cover
Should we hide the darker aspects of fairy tales from teen readers? No. Should we explore them with our teens? Yes. Exploration is the stuff of intellect and good decision making. But there is a line–or if there isn’t, there should be. Of course, banning kids from reading a given book isn’t a solution–censorship never is (especially not when they can hold up a cover and say, “But look, Mom, it’s YA!”) And some kids may be ready for Tender Morsels–I read adult books as a kid (Pillars of the Earth in grade 7/age 11). My question is, should those kids not ready for TM and similar books be faced with them? Should they be racked in the YA section of Barnes & Noble?
In the US, TM’s cover is very teen accessible–it’s a stylized fairy tale scene, the sort of art that might show up in Bill Willingham’s Fables series or on the cover of a Shannon Hale novel. Nothing about the cover suggests the book’s darker, arguably less accessible content. To put the darkness of Lanagan’s story in context, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final installment in Rowling’s series, was touted as too dark and too violent for younger readers (for me, the great beauty of HP was how the series grew with its readers). The adult editions of TM (it’s a crossover title) have less teen-friendly covers–some of which I’d hesitate to pick up even now. Cigarette companies are no longer allowed to market to teens; films are forced to provide clear age ratings, as are video games. And while I’m not suggested publishers start sticking NC-17 labels on their titles, I’m not sure TM and the like should be blithely classed as YA just because their protagonists are teens (the sole reason I can see–through very misty long distance goggles–for putting the book out as YA).
It’s become common practice to worry about infantilizing our teens–we’re a far cry from Kingsley’s plea to let children be children (The Water Babies). Although I’m largely for treating teens as responsible adults (within reason–this child of mine will not be hunting Daleks until he’s at least 17), books such as Tender Morsels may be pushing boundaries too quickly.
Have you read the book or Lanagan’s short story collection, Red Spikes? What did you think? Would you recommend Tender Morsels to a teenaged friend?
Photo Credit: Carlosh, via sxc.hu
Edit: I mistakenly listed “Precious”, by Sapphire, as “Push It”. “Precious” is the film adaptation of the aforementioned “Push”. The post has been updated to reflect this.
Update: a little more about TM as YA in today’s post, New Adult Fiction – Beyond the Limits of YA, or Just New Packaging?
Market Bound – Limits in YA Literature http://goo.gl/fb/dvdz #writing #myblogReply – Quote
Great post! I’m glad I’m not the only one who couldn’t finish TM. I really wanted to like it though because it is so edgy and brings up very real issues in a fantasy novel/fairy tale retelling package. Fairy tales are often pretty grim aren’t they? But at the same time I don’t really like reading stories about terrible things happening to people.
The question about is it YA or not is a good one. I wish I could have finished the whole thing so I could reflect on that a bit better. I don’t see why it couldn’t be YA since equally terrible things happen to even younger children around the world, but I kind of wonder what the author’s intentions were. Did she envision her audience to be teenagers or adults like her?
Amitha — Margo Lanagan said in an interview that she didn’t write for any particular age group, but was aware it might be marketed as YA, so she kept it less detailed than it would have been otherwise. Still seems pretty darn heavy to me.
I also have no idea why Tender Morsels is labeled YA. RT @petaandersen Limits in YA Literature http://bit.ly/5xQMwPReply – Quote
@Amitha – Thanks for the kind words. I imagine I’ll finish it sometime–I rarely leave a book unfinished. It’ll be a while before I’m ready to go back to it, though.
I think it would be better marketed as adult with the understanding that kids read up. I can’t find any particular YA appeal. Consider Gossip Girl: it’s YA chick lit. TM is more like a slightly less disturbing horror/fairy tale/ issues novel.
It’s not that terrible things don’t happen to children–they do. Books such as Sold push boundaries, too. It’s just that there seems to be something gratuitous in TM, some reveling in the brutality of it, almost as if Lanagan wants to say, “look what I can do”.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Livia Blackburne, Peta Andersen. Peta Andersen said: Market Bound – Limits in YA Literature http://goo.gl/fb/dvdz #writing #myblog [...]
@Livia Blackburne – do you have a link for the interview? I find it interesting that she suspected the book would be marketed as YA.
I think I had a much higher tolerance for Horrid Stuff when I was a teen, because it just wasn’t real to me. It was stylized Horrid Stuff happening to Other People. I had a whole lot less understanding of the world, and a whole lot less empathy. Now it doesn’t interest me, and I wouldn’t read it; the non-fic versions are bad enough.
So perhaps it’s appropriate to market really dark stuff to younger audiences. When I was a child, some of the fairy-tales ended with the Evil Antagonist being buried in a pit of thorns, or half-buried in the sand covered in honey for ants to dine on. It didn’t horrify me nearly as much as the Antagonist getting away or being pardoned would have done.
Someone getting all squeamish about Tender Morsels, now that the pb is about to hit the market: http://goo.gl/fb/dvdzReply – Quote
“In the US, TM’s cover is very teen accessible–it’s a stylized fairy tale scene, the sort of art that might show up in Bill Willingham’s Fables series or on the cover of a Shannon Hale novel. Nothing about the cover suggests the book’s darker, arguably less accessible content.”
I find it really interesting that you’re suggesting here that Fables is YA – nothing about Fables suggests itself to be YA to me, as a secondary school librarian. I have no problem putting copies of Tender Morsels on my library shelves, and have many young readers (14+) who have loved it. However, despite my own personal love of the Fables series, I will not buy it for my school library, as I think it’s inappropriate. Margo deals with gritty and morally challenging themes in Tender Morsels, which to me, makes it a worthy addition to a young adult collection. You really should finish the book, as the ending is certainly worth it and may cause you to rethink the story’s context.
@keyan – Do you remember at what age you started to see things less as Horrid Stuff happening to Other People as just Horrid Stuff?
I didn’t read much in the Horrid Stuff category when I was young – part of it was a lack of access, part of it lack of interest (I’ve never been much for crime shows/action films/&c.). I did read pretty much every fairy tale I could get my hands on, though, and I remember not being terribly disturbed by it – I think not so much because of a dissociation as from not fully reading between the lines. This may be why I reacted to TM so strongly–I’m used to having to read between the lines, and TM doesn’t really make me.
@Tehani – I’ve been thinking about this since I read your comment early (too early!) this morning.
You’re absolutely right about Fables not being classed as YA–I went over the covers of my editions (I have the bound story collections). I think the reason I stuck it in with YA is because I picked it up in the YA section of a bookstore. I don’t know if the B&N classed it as YA, or if someone shelving just thought, “oh, graphic novel with fairy tales, that’s YA”.
That said, I’ve been thinking about how I’d rate Fables and Tender Morsels using the movie rating system. To me, at least, Fables works if you put a lot of the violence &c. off screen. As far as I can tell, this isn’t true of Tender Morsels, though I am saying that without having finished the book.
I’m wondering – how would you describe the 14+ readers enjoying the book? Do you know what exactly they like about it? What did you like about it?
I will eventually finish Tender Morsels, I think, though it may have to be piecemeal. I’m not sure I can read it all in one go.Reply – Quote
I personally loved Tender Morsels. Maybe I’m a twisted freak. I definitely understand why you put the book down. The first 50 pages are brutal. But I found it to be beautifully written – the imagery was outstanding – and the ending made me weep it was so bittersweet. I agree with you that it probably shouldn’t be marketed as a “teen” book. I’m a YA librarian, and despite it being one of my favorite books, I have not recommended it to any teens. I have recommended it to friends of mine though, with a light warning. I tell them, that if they can get passed the scenes of abuse, it’s an excellent story about the beauty and terror of life – how the world can be filled with moments of absolute terror and absolute joy, and how we must learn to cope with the bad in order to have a chance to enjoy the good. I encourage you to give Tender Morsels another try.
Article on Tender Morsels. I see where she is coming from, but I think that by not finishing the book she misses a lot http://rt.nu/h15cd4Reply – Quote
@Tess – While I’m still iffy about the YA rating, all this discussion is certainly pushing me toward picking it up sooner rather than later! What made you stick through the first 50 pages? Was it the writing, or something else?
From an interview with Lanagan in the Guardian:
“There’s this assumption that all children have the luxury of a childhood where their innocence is always respected and their main occupation is pleasant play – at the age of 18, or 21, they are then thrust into the real world and shown its uglier side, but not before. How on earth do people imagine we equip children for life, if we never show them the sorts of issues other people encounter, if we never talk through with them how they might deal with difficulty, or violence, or unexpected shocks and surprises?”
Lanagan also pointed to the current “fashion for vampires and all things gothic”, which she said showed the appetite for “dark themes, sinister characters, and horrific events against which the kinder and sweeter aspects of human nature, when they do show, can shine even more brightly”.
More here.
@keyan –
You know I agree with Keyan, as a teen I had a high tolerance for the edgy cruel world of books and movies. Now that I’m an adult with children and a firmer understanding of my own mortality, I choose not to read material that is dark and depressing. It no longer entertains me but disturbs me.
By your description of TM I would not choose to read it at this point in my life. However, my teenage self would have been fascinated by the fable of Snow White and Rose Red and the harsh world they endured.
@Peta – What got me through the harsh beginning, honestly? You’ll laugh, but the cover. To be fair, not the cutesy YA cover we’ve been discussing, but this one: http://bit.ly/6QCbU7 – I was really curious to find out where the bears came in :) I did LOVE the writing though. Lanagan’s descriptions made me immediately relate to Liga and the other characters. I just loved the book, but I’m fully aware it’s not for everyone.
@Ansha Kotyk – This makes me curious about books I loved as a teen–next time I’m home, I think I’ll have to dig out a few and try re-reading them.
@Tess – That’s actually the cover I have. It made me a little curious, though I kind of shelved it as metaphor until I started reading the book.
I can’t decide if I like Lanagan’s writing or not. One moment, I’m entirely with her; the next I’m struggling through a thorny passage. Then again, the writing may be mirroring the story…
[...] this week, I asked about the limits in YA literature. Is there a line? And if so, where is [...]
@Peta: I’m not sure what age I stopped being fascinated by very dark themes – probably around my late 20s or even after. It was, as Ansha says, when I stopped being immortal and invulnerable. I find a lot of writing for younger audiences very dark… like the Cirque du Freak books, for instance. Yet I can completely see my younger self enjoying those books.
Market Bound – Limits in YA Literature http://goo.gl/fb/MmMF #writing #myblogReply – Quote
Possibly, before you make statements like “is 494 pages of incest, miscarriage, more incest, gang rape, attempted suicide, and general abuse” (it isn’t) and “Is it fair to suggest to girls–because TM is clearly a girls’ book–that when bad things happen, everything will be okay if they subsume their individuality, their hurts, to further the interest of their children? Post-suicide attempt, Liga continues her life not for herself, but for her child–a noble act. But would her change of mind be any less noble if it were the result of recognized self-worth?”–which mischaracterizes the point of the book completely–it would be better to finish the book.
You’re used to having to read between the lines… and that is actually what Tender Morsels is all about, in the beginning. I think it’s so skillfully done that a lot of adult readers don’t even realize they’re filling in the gaps themselves. If you look back, nothing in those first chapters is explicit.
Haven't finished Tender Morsels (by @margolanagan)? DON'T. REVIEW. IT. http://goo.gl/fb/dvdzReply – Quote
@Wendy – I don’t think Lanagan’s details are explicit. Nothing about the abuse-related scenes was graphic–her writing was skilfully evasive. She didn’t pull any punches about feelings, though. Being so deeply inside the POV is, I think, possibly worse than a graphic description. It’s easy to jump over physical details. But jumping over a character’s thoughts/feelings is hard, even after just a few pages.
Everything I’m hearing about TM is encouraging me to finish the book. That said, I still think the suicide scene is unfair. To borrow a cliche, I’d do whatever necessary to take care of my child. But I don’t think I could care for him–not well–if I didn’t consider my own well-being in the process.
I’m wondering – can anyone cite an example of a hopeful scene in TM? Page number?
Wendy — People often say that the details in TM aren’t explicit, but I wonder if that’s because they’re only thinking about the scenes with Liga. I found that several of the scenes later on were quite explicit. Two jump into mind — second bear’s attempts to force himself upon Branza. I’m gonna quote here, and there are spoilers later on in the comment, so skip this if you don’t want to read anything explicit.
“[the bear] held her body to the tree he had herded her against, and he licked and licked at the rosy nipple as if it were honey leaking from a cracked pot, until Branza hardly knew what to think, with the heat and the strength of the sensations, and the horror of their newness. Other parts of her responded that were quite far from the nipple itself..”
There’s no reading between the lines there.
The scene toward the end, where the puppet men rape the five village men with burning pins is also described in detail.
“The Woodman-magic tore off the man’s trousers. ‘Look at him,’ he said. ‘Bright as two moons. This is the one that instigated it boys. Make sure he remembers.” And they went at him, each with his great glowing pin…”
Sorry if these passages were excessive. I’ve just heard so many people say now that TM is okay because everything happens off screen. I don’t know if it’s because everyone forgets about the rest, or if the marketers only read the first few scenes. But I really don’t see how this could be marketed by anyone as YA.
@Livia Blackburne – Thanks for the examples, Livia!
I think some readers may think TM isn’t explicit because Lanagan appears to use a lot of euphemisms. Perhaps this is unfair to the more mature teen readers who are picking up TM. Yesterday, I wrote about St. Martin’s and New Adult Fiction – I really do think books such as this would benefit from the bump up.
I wonder how much the controversy surrounding the book has affected sales…?
Sorry for nitpickiness–the book is Push, the movie is Precious. The author is still Sapphire :)
I think people of whatever age have the right to choose their own reading material, whether the reader enjoys or understands what they read is entirely up to the reader. I have been choosing my own books since I was 9 or 10. None of my responsible adults (and I had many, lucky girl me) ever told me not to read this or the other book; more often than not they were pressing some book they loved into my hand, whether it was “age-appropriate” or not. If the reader comes across something they don’t like, s/he can stop reading. If they come across something they like/love/hate/can’t understand/understand all too well, they will probably want to talk to someone about it–I know most books leave me feeling that way.
If the issue is about marketing, I think people ought to be more wary of buying books by their covers. I’m not saying don’t do it–I do it all the time, but with the knowledge that what’s inside may not be as the packaging presents.
Is it a deception on the part of the publisher to try to sell more books (targeting teens because the protag is teenaged)? It’s possible. But I think it’s naive to assume that teens can’t handle heavy issues; aren’t so many young people subjected to hurt and harm in reality who may need the distance provided by fiction in order to understand their situations better? I know I could have used something of the kind when I was much younger. For the record, I haven’t read the book, but now I want to just to see what all the fuss is about. I have no idea yet if the lines above (out of context) are simply used to shock and titillate, or if there is anything redemptive in the story. Is it the lack of a positive message like “find a way to pull yourself out of an abusive situation” that people are balking at? I can see how the absence of such a message would render scenes of sexual abuse gratuitous.
@Alethea – oops, thanks for pointing out the name flub!
This came up on the NESCBWI list (I asked about TM there, too) – between that and this, I’m realizing what this issue comes down to is trusting teens know what they can handle and what they can’t.
I think books like this generate more controversy than equivalent films of videogames – maybe because there’s something impermeable about the written word? And yet, maybe trust should be easier with books–peer pressure can make it difficult to walk out of a theater filled with filled with friends, or to beg off playing a game. Opting not to read a book may be easier than telling friends you’d prefer not to listen to certain lyrics etc.
Perhaps things are easier with books, too, because they can be put down. I can’t go to the movies and hit pause; I can set TM aside until I’m ready for more.
From what I’ve seen, I think the fuss is around the lack of redemptive qualities. A lot of that appears to be coming from folks who haven’t read the book, though I’ve seen/read/heard both from people who’ve finished it, too. At this point in my reading, I’m having trouble seeing something hopeful in TM. Maybe I’ll change my mind. I’ll write another post when I finished the book.
Also – I love your blog’s name and rating system!
Peta — here is the link to the interview.
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/lanagan_interview/
Alethea — I think people will disagree about whether the details are excessive. It’s not meant to be, and some of the descriptive passages are really well done and beautifully written even while the events they’re describing are not. In fact, I’ll probably write a blog entry about how Lanagan skillfully invokes mood in her passages.
For me, the issue is not whether teens should read this book or not — that’s too hard to generalize and will depend on the individual teen. It’s more of a label mismatch. I don’t go into a PG-13 movie expecting extended frontal nudity. Likewise, I naively expect my YA books to go easy on the bestiality and male gang rape. Maybe I’m a prude, but I do cringe every time I pick up my library copy and see the bright purple “Childrens” label taped to the spine.
Here’s what I said to Peta on Twitter last night after reading about 10 pages: I can’t imagine why anyone, after even the first 5 pages, would label this YA knowing that kids as young as middle school may read it. I mean, I’m enjoying it! but I’m 31, & I’m also reading Still Life with Woodpecker, so my attitudes towards sex in books is in no way what I think a 14 year old, sophisticated as s/he may think her/himself to be, would need to appreciate TM, whether or not it does have some sort of redemptive message. I just don’t know if a real YA would *enjoy* this, it would take considerably less time, effort, and imagination to just seek out naughty bits on the internet, were that their motivation for reading this book. Meanwhile, I’m distracted by Incarceron and the aforementioned Tom Robbins novel. So it may take me a while to finish TM–I’ll get back to you next week?
@LornaSuzuki Have you read @petaandersen 's blog post on TM? I weighed in in the comments. http://bit.ly/bBfqfvReply – Quote
[...] correctly. But today’s YA isn’t just about what’s cool. It’s about what its audience needs. And while I’m unsure where exactly the line in the sand should be, I think this is a good [...]
[...] learn about the world/wrap him up in the thickest swathes of cotton wool I can find. In the past, I’ve written about limits in YA literature, and I’m certainly not a fan of gratuitous violence in any medium. And yet, as Christopher [...]