How Dare Joyce Write Archer?
Just found a generous and challenging review of How to Greet Strangers on Goodreads. It calls out the elephant in the living room: How dare a white female writer speak for and as an HIV positive black drag queen?
My first answer is rather mystical. Archer had a story to tell and used me to tell it. My second answer is that story is not, by its very nature, politically correct. But the reviewer deserves an answer and the question itself deserves debate.
What follows is Amy Boese's review and the note I wrote to her in reply.
The Review
"This is a brilliant work of fiction with a compelling and complicated narrator. Archer is outstanding, in every moment and every guise. The rich detail of his world as a young law student, a star-struck young lover and a sad penitent are equally evocative. The mystery is less about the murder than it is about where Archer will find equilibrium.Wonderful this work is, I can't help feeling that Archer is Joyce Thompson's cheap shot to a new mystery voice. Tell me how a white woman from Seattle can be the one to bring a tall, gay, ex-Santeria, HIV positive, black man to life?
I give Thompson 100% for artistic license, for taking Archer and making him into a wonderful character to read about, but why is her book on my bookshelf (picked up off my library's new book display) and not a new voice in mystery written by a gay HIV+ black man?
Call me out. Tell me why I should let this slide. Argue her case: show me why she is one perspective of many and I will be chastised. Because as I try to read diversely and widely, I feel that I keep running into this same issue: diversity of voice in fiction as written by the same people that have dominated the publishing houses for years." --Amy Boese
The Reply
Amy, thanks for your critical thinking about the origins of Archer and my right to write him. The course of my life around these issues is mysterious to me, but ultimately feels natural. I'm descended from John Brown, Levi Coffin and a bunch of folks who died in Andersonville. My grandmother and her sisters quit the DAR when they wouldn't let Marian Anderson sing in their clubhouse, my father filed and won racial harrassment law suits in the 50s. At 13, I was doorbelling for an open housing ordinance in white-bread Seattle. In the late 90s, I found my way to Santeria. Became a priest. Moved to Oakland. Archer is himself and a fictional composite of my god brothers and my own gay son. Every word was subjected to scrutiny and discussion with black men, gay men and black gay men. With their input and affirmation, I was bold enough to publish this book, which found its way through me almost as an act of trance possession. I am heartened that it has been useful and moving to people in the Santeria community.
All you say is true, but this is not a"cheap shot."
That said, the issues you raise are profound and worth debating.
My first answer is rather mystical. Archer had a story to tell and used me to tell it. My second answer is that story is not, by its very nature, politically correct. But the reviewer deserves an answer and the question itself deserves debate.
What follows is Amy Boese's review and the note I wrote to her in reply.
The Review
"This is a brilliant work of fiction with a compelling and complicated narrator. Archer is outstanding, in every moment and every guise. The rich detail of his world as a young law student, a star-struck young lover and a sad penitent are equally evocative. The mystery is less about the murder than it is about where Archer will find equilibrium.Wonderful this work is, I can't help feeling that Archer is Joyce Thompson's cheap shot to a new mystery voice. Tell me how a white woman from Seattle can be the one to bring a tall, gay, ex-Santeria, HIV positive, black man to life?
I give Thompson 100% for artistic license, for taking Archer and making him into a wonderful character to read about, but why is her book on my bookshelf (picked up off my library's new book display) and not a new voice in mystery written by a gay HIV+ black man?
Call me out. Tell me why I should let this slide. Argue her case: show me why she is one perspective of many and I will be chastised. Because as I try to read diversely and widely, I feel that I keep running into this same issue: diversity of voice in fiction as written by the same people that have dominated the publishing houses for years." --Amy Boese
The Reply
Amy, thanks for your critical thinking about the origins of Archer and my right to write him. The course of my life around these issues is mysterious to me, but ultimately feels natural. I'm descended from John Brown, Levi Coffin and a bunch of folks who died in Andersonville. My grandmother and her sisters quit the DAR when they wouldn't let Marian Anderson sing in their clubhouse, my father filed and won racial harrassment law suits in the 50s. At 13, I was doorbelling for an open housing ordinance in white-bread Seattle. In the late 90s, I found my way to Santeria. Became a priest. Moved to Oakland. Archer is himself and a fictional composite of my god brothers and my own gay son. Every word was subjected to scrutiny and discussion with black men, gay men and black gay men. With their input and affirmation, I was bold enough to publish this book, which found its way through me almost as an act of trance possession. I am heartened that it has been useful and moving to people in the Santeria community.
All you say is true, but this is not a"cheap shot."
That said, the issues you raise are profound and worth debating.
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