Bookz in da Hood?

A new group offers an alternative to "street lit"

A few weeks ago, publishing's Talented Tenth gathered at Random House to celebrate the launch of ringShout, a group dedicated to "recognizing, reclaiming and celebrating literary fiction and non fiction by black writers."  The organization's founders--authors Martha Southgate, Eisa Nefertari Ulen and Bridgett Davis; Cave Canem 'sAlison Myers and Random House editor Chris Jackson--call ringShout "a place for black literature." 

But even as the night sparkled with writers, editors, booksellers and other black literati, a 10,000 pound elephant sat squarely in the center of the room: ghetto fiction, street lit or as one writer has called it "ho for dough books." As we know, in African-American bookstores and the Af-Am interest sections of the chains, novels like "Making Him Want It," "Crackhead," "Freak in the Sheets" and "Nasty Girls," are hip-checking literary superstars like Edward P. Jones, Toni Morrison and Edwidge Danticat off the shelves. Other authors never make it into print, squeezed out by dirty girls (and boys) like Zane, Nikki Turner, Karrine Steffans and their lower rent offspring.

The rise of this lust-fueled genre has sparked vigorous debate in African-American publishing circles. But the discussions occur in hissed whispers largely under the mainstream media radar. Author Nick Chiles hung out the dirty laundry two years ago in a buzzy New York Times op-ed piece called "Their Eyes Are Reading Smut."  In it he described urban fiction as "tasteless pornography."

Ulen, in an essay in the latest issue of The Crisis Magazine, put it this way:
 
"Black folk love sex. They crave it so much, they can't get enough...They need to read about it rough, rugged and raw. Black women like to be called bitch and ho in the books they read....This is Black life as expressed by contemporary commercial Black fiction and non fiction. These falsehoods, presented as truths, packaged as urban tales, titillate and, seemingly, satisfy so much, they sell like socks." 

Southgate didn't refer to street lit at all when she bemoaned the lack of literary African-American writers in her much-blogged about essay "Writers Like Me" that ran in July in the New York Times Book Review. She was more direct last week at the ringShout event when discussing the plan to create a literary reading list. You could refer to it "if you're in Barnes and Noble standing there looking at 8 million booty books and can't decide what to pick," she said to the crowd of about 200. Her comment caused uneasy titters.

Many in the room that night have been forced to perform a delicate balancing act when it comes to street lit--and everyone else has been slow or unwilling to confront and openly criticize the handful of black editors and publishers who broker the few deals that African-American writers receive. It is understood that, as smart and powerful as several of them are, they are not the real kingmakers in what has been facetiously called "the incredible whiteness of book publishing." And no disrespect to Zane, Turner and the rest who have used grit and wit to "get theirs" in an industry that has stubbornly resisted diversity.

Most publishing houses tread a fine line, guided by the model created by an industry with far more experience marketing to African Americans: fast food restaurants. Sure McDonald's offers grilled chicken salads with apple slices on the side, but what sells best is the juicy bacon burger with fries and a supersize Coke. The greasy grub doesn't cost much to make, tastes good, has little nutritional value but pays the bills.

Similarly, Atria, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, published Ulen and will also release "Yellow Moon," a new novel by the award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes. But as far as African-American authors, it is Zane, thin-sliced as Strebor Books, Zane Presents, Chocolate Flava and Eroticanoir, who is Atria's million dollar baby. 

Without screaming its intent, ringShout is a positive response to this exploding trend. The stated goals of the group are to develop resource guides, publishing projects, a reading series and website, as well as provide outreach to bookstores and academia.

But as noble and lofty as these objectives are, the group will face its challenges. What exactly is literary fiction and non fiction? Is it an "I know it when I see it" kind of thing? Is it "what I write?" In the largely black and white world of publishing, defining literary is a gray area.

For example, it's definitely this:

"Moses closed his eyes and bent down and took a pinch of the soil and ate it with no more thought than if it were a spot of cornbread. He worked the dirt around in his mouth and swallowed, leaning his head back and opening his eyes in time to see the strip of sun fade to dark blue and then to nothing. He was the only man in the realm, slave or free, who ate dirt, but while the bondage women, particularly the pregnant ones, ate it for some incomprehensible need, for that something that ash cakes and apples and fatback did not give their bodies, he ate it not only to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the field, but because the eating of it tied him to the only thing in his small world that meant almost as much as his own life." - From "The Known World" by Edward P. Jones

And definitely not this:
"...Ride it," he ordered her.

Paula began to move up and down on Cleezy, the sound of her wetness driving him crazy. "Faster." She sped up. "Faster." In no time at all Paula looked like she was riding a mechanical bull. Cleezy was in control, pumping faster and faster with each stroke, forcing Paula to keep up. Up and down she went, her titties flopping.

Cleezy lifted his head and looked down to see cream settling in Paula's jungle..." - From Riding Dirty on I95 by Nikki Turner.

Or this:
"He was huge. I knew there was no way I'd ever be able to take the whole thing down my throat, but I was willing to give it the old college try..." From The Sex Chronicles by Zane.

But what about between the between? And who gets to decide? Will there soon be a VIP section in bookstores, roped off in black velvet, for literary writers only? Warning labels on some titles?

On the ringShout website, the founders pledge to support "serious, skilled black writers creating ambitious fiction." But they are careful to add, "We also want to assert our centrality to all facets of the American experience, literary and otherwise."

That will be the test--to find just the right degree of centrality. Anybody and everybody who loves books, especially ours, must figure this out together. ringShout is named after a sacred circle dance created by Africans brought here as slaves. That dance was participatory, a communal celebration for the entire community. So go to the ringShout blog, see what the group's all about and get involved. And remember that the aim must be to keep our literary circle sacred--and very, very wide.