The American Fiction Problem

TLDR capitalism is so dumb and boring

This topic is coming in hot after

Hannah Hart Wilken

sent me this 2022 stack from Carmen Maria Machado, to which I sent voice memos in response. Hottest thing for a Gemini to hear after talking for 5 straight minutes? “You should write about this!” Thanks Hannah, we love you here at TFV.

Machado’s (super good!) piece is about the business side of writing, and how it is a poison to the artistic and creative practice of writing. When a writer’s biggest concern or goal is to produce a publishable and profitable book, the entire point of writing books — to tell great stories, express truths, convey the human experience, connect to others through literature, yada yada — is lost.

Unfortunately, as Machado well understands, this is fucking America, and in America, the ONLY thing that matters is profit. Writers can’t live on the expression of truth or conveyance of the human experience. They live on food, purchased by money, which is given to them if and oNLY if their book has a dead body. (Joking! Sort of! I’m not, really!)

When I look through my reads from the last few years, contemporary American fiction is not well-represented, and even less-represented among books that I loved and began recommending widely to others. Instead, Irish writers consistently top the list, which is very interesting data when interpreted through the fact that Irish artists are, among numerous other supports, exempt from income taxes up to 50k, and eligible for robust bursary awards and even basic monthly income, all of which allow writers to just fucking write good writing without needing to worry about producing profitable content as often as possible for a conglomerate publishing house that is making billions of dollars in profit and certainly not using those billions of dollars in profit to pay editors’ salaries.

But it’s not just that American writers aren’t topping out my faves. I actively struggle finishing some of their books, and these will often be widely anticipated and well-received titles, leaving me confused. These are writers that I think are skilled, and could be writing great books, but their published works leave me going “it just needed another round of edits.” Kind of like how if my own second or third or fourth draft of my book got published it would certainly also make someone go, “This isn’t good! I’m confused why people are saying it is!”

the amount of times a cow bucked me outta my hammock while I was reading THE BEE STING by PAUL MURRAY and I didn’t fuggin notice. The book took him 5 years to write.

It’s really fucking hard to write every single one of those drafts, but what America is forgetting being brainwashed into believing is that we don’t deserve time to make things great — unless it’s provably going to “pay off” in some “tangible” way. Why go for that really good fifth, exquisite sixth, or practically perfect seventh draft if it will take another year, if we have something good enough right now, that will make us money, right now?

In case you didn’t already know, there are 5 publishers in the U.S. that own virtually every other (and there are hundreds) publishing group, making them known as The Big 5. Two of these five were actually blocked from merging in 2022, in a significant antitrust victory that called attention to the problems that already exist for writers (especially those trying to debut) due to this lack of diversity in the market. What used to be a competition among publishing houses to secure top talent has now become a competition among writers to produce the most sellable thing to attract one of the five — who, of course, because their bottom line is profit, buy books based on what will predictably earn them money, with the two main factors being what kind of audience the writer already has (are they a celeb? influencer? have a podcast? perfect!) and what already aligns with what the “market” “wants” (murder? fantasy? romance? romantasy? done!).

This affects not just writers; agents, whose labor is almost entirely unpaid, have to take on projects not just that they personally love and want to champion, but projects that they can sell. Ditto for editors, who are also looking for work that basically doesn’t need editing, as they are increasingly stretched thin among more and more manuscripts — though the Big 5 report historically high margins of profit, U.S. publishing jobs have decreased by 40% in the last three decades, with jobs continuing to be cut every year. Agents and editors, like writers, also live on food, and we can’t blame them for prioritizing writing that will “sell.” Because, for the Big 5, that’s all the game is about — selling the copy. It doesn’t matter if what’s inside is actually good; it matters only if you were convinced it would be.

But, as was inevitable in this system, this hyper-focus on profit over quality of work has led to other problems, liiiike, tokenizing,¹ or not noticing plagiarism, or, as reported on in this-is-my-personal-nightmare New Yorker article about stolen IP, a proliferation of “book packaging,” in which publishers actually hire teams of writers and editors to create a book start to finish (complete with all the elements their AI algorithm says it needs) so they can get it on the market and start tallying up their money bags as quickly as possible. Because who the fuck cares about art.

Really, who the fuck cares about art? America doesn’t. We don’t place value on it, just like we don’t place value on studying it, or on higher education in general, or on education in general.

How can we be surprised that fiction is suffering here when 44% of American adults do not read a single book in a year? Our literacy levels are getting worse, among adults as well as children. 40% of students across the nation cannot read at a basic level, a figure that only gets more pronounced among children that aren’t white or are poor. And this is an entirely preventable problem. We just don’t care, just like we don’t care how many millions of dollars students go into debt trying to get an education.

Yet if we did start caring about art, there would be a “tangible” “payoff” — and not just because illiteracy costs American taxpayers an estimated $20 billion each year. Reading is proven to deepen empathy, build vocabulary, improve critical thinking and communication skills, reduce stress, improve sleep, strengthen memory, and, of course, strengthen our ability to write. Might it not stand to reason that the better the book, the more profound its impact in all of these areas?

So, the problem with American fiction. On top of (or because of) a hostile environment, we aren’t encouraged to write better books — just more of the “right” ones. We aren’t encouraged to take our time, to take up more pages, to digress and meditate.² Also, we basically can’t afford to.

I believe that artists are valuable members of society, because their work, when it’s ready, will positively impact the economy, it will educate people, and it will be for the common good of everyone, and I don’t believe that they need to, in the meantime, somehow prove their worth to us otherwise. Maybe you agree with me. Maybe you care about knowledge, just for the sake of knowledge. Maybe you enjoy feeling something. Maybe you think there’s something more to being alive than what can be earned and bought.

Then you believe in art. You believe in literature. You believe in these things not as frivolities but as possibly the most important things we have, and you believe that everyone deserves access to these things. And you should start standing up and saying so with your whole chest, because we love American fiction and want to cure it of its blight.

In the meantime — virtually no writer gets to that practically perfect seventh draft on their own, with no support, and no reader (read: editor) invested in its success. And in a country that’s only growing increasingly averse to artists, we have to make a point to offer that support where it’s needed. If you have a draft of a book, or a story, and you need a reader to help get you to the next draft, send it to me, always. I will do anything, anything, for better writing to see the light of day.

this has been—

xxx your twin flame

draft number idfk

P.S. can you tell it’s Aquarius season in this newsletter? jfc.

1. Highly recommend Yellowface by RF Kuang for more on this and other publishing industry hypocrisies! (And it’s just juicy af!)

2. The three longest contemporary novels I read last year were The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard (Norwegian); The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Irish); and The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (New Zealander), all 600-800 pages, while the longest American novel I read last year (in the last several years??) was 400 pg. If I had more energy I would expand on this point more but I think you get what I’m saying. And no, it’s not that we should all start trying to be DFW again.