In Which the Lit World Once Again Makes Us the Very Characters We Would Never Write

This whole latest literary controversy keeps on giving but I’ve been very interested in some non-writers responses. One woman commented, “Sounds like a bunch of writers jealous of some other writer’s success.” I had a laugh over that but then I also thought it wasn’t entirely untrue. In Jeanine Cummins’s twitter bio she has “bestselling author but who isn’t?” which really seems to troll the entire literary world because I hate to tell you, Jeanine Cummins, the vast majority of us are not. The vast majority of us are barely eating, are a big loss for our publishers, are not recognized by Oprah or anyone close, can barely get book tour money much less a livable advance. Myriam Gurba has been honest about the advance for her book: $1500. That might shock most of you—it’s what a lot of us get for magazine articles—but it’s very real when you are published by indies. Sure, you get “cred” and all that, but most of us would rather just eat and not pray every month that the rent check doesn’t bounce.

[big LA Times feature in 2007 for my first novel]

Some of us had rough entries to the lit world. In many ways, my first negative review shaped who i would always be in this sphere. It did not help that some have regarded this the worst review of all time! Carolyn See is now dead but at the time she was one of the most esteemed book critics in the world. I woke up in DC the morning after my first book tour stop—my first book tour stop of my very first book tour!—excited to get the Washington Post in my fancy hotel room that Grove/Atlantic had paid for. I had had good pre-pub reviews and a pretty glowing Sunday New York Times Book Review review. I felt good about my debut novel! See did not. The only saving grace of this review was that it was so out of line on so many counts that no one could take it seriously. I mean, imagine writing a book review in the form of an open letter to an entirely unknown fiction writer! Why do this? The one legit thing she noted was my overuse of the word “snapped” in tagging dialogue (truly shameful) but then she went on to poke at my online presence (my blogspot?!) and my blurbs and how could Iranians leave the country around 9/11 and some serious xenophobic shit. Why?! Carolyn, ma’am, why are you like this? She said she was tempted to call the Iranian consulate in DC (we have not had diplomatic relations with Iran in many decades!) It was a mess.

Today I laugh about it. I tell students about it. I get a kick out of the fact that I angered this old white gatekeeper by simply existing. But at the time, 2007, when i was just 29 and terrified by all the attention, it was horrific. I walked around DC with my boyfriend, bawling, that long day. Eventually I took to that old blogspot and posted a response (hey, open letter for open letter!) and it was quite incendiary (this was still the age of lit blogs and many of them covered it, most siding with me). The whole episode really did crush me. And it forced me once again into an old role I knew well: the angry, loud, fighting WOC. I resented it but it also felt so familiar I was relieved to take on a character where I knew the lines and could anticipate the response.

Life went on.

My second novel took two and a half years to sell (my first had taken two months). No one wanted such a big departure from my first, though for me they were both very Iranian-American—just one dipped in realism & the other in fabulism. Reader, I wish you could see the comments my poor agent would send my way. In one case an editor pitched us a whole other book I should write as my second novel! In another case, another editor said he had seen my author photo and it made him feel “so disappointed” he could not buy the book.

Of course, these were white people.

Years later, my third book came out. This went somewhat smoothly until I got too sick to handle much of the press and touring. Just before it came out I started having the most severe insomnia of my life and I began collapsing and ending up in ER. One day after such an episode the head of publicity at this major house called me in. I said I was sick. They said this was huge. I went in. Reader, they wanted to convince me to be on the Megyn Kelly show—or rather the show had expressed interest and who could say no?

Um, I could, I said. Pretty sure she is racist and problematic on many levels?

The rest of the meeting was a whole team trying to convince me to go for it. I was hours from a seizure. It never ended up happening but I remember going home, shaking, thinking these white people were going to kill me one of these days.

I carry on. My fourth book is coming out in a few months and I am at a house where nothing bad has happened. But the lit world continues to be a traumatic place for me. Does it have to do with my entry back in 2007? The fact that I have been an activist centered around issues of race and diversity since the Nineties? Is it just that these episodes like the American Dirt one never ever end as much as powerful white people claim they’ve learned?

At a certain point you just know the ignorance is willful. Capitalism requires the most cunning self-awareness to thrive; the empire needs an epic bottom to support the weight of its all-powerful apex.

So here we go again. Old story. We have our jokes ready. We dust off the old arguments. We know little will change. We keep going though because this is the story we were born to tell, whether we like it or not.