The other night, as a party of writerly types was winding down, I was caught up in a commercial versus literary discussion. Purity of purpose versus reaching out to readers. Aesthetics versus money. Art versus entertainment. Respect of the literati versus wide readership.

As a novelist who has published over twenty books, I’ve written both art and entertainment. I tend to know, when I first set out, the novel’s intentions. Truth be told, editors and readers often see things completely differently, as is their right. I’ve had a novel bought by a more commercial press only to be told that they see me as one of their literary writers. And I’ve had a novel bought by a more literary imprint who saw the book as one of their more commercial titles.

And so it may come as no surprise, I have a take on this age-old debate.

My bottom line is this: both are traps — the desire for readership and the desire for respect.

At the party, I had loud, obnoxious things to say about David Foster Wallace, having finally seen The End of the Tour. In the biopic, we see a novelist at the height of critical and commercial success expressing his deep fear of being perceived as a sell-out, as a prostitute, as he put it.

Now, my grandmother was raised in a house of prostitution; her mother was the madam of the house. And so this hit close to home. I doubt there’s anyone alive today whose very existence doesn’t, in some way, owe their existence to a woman in their lineage who was forced to have sex for money — through prostitution or being sold into a marriage or a marriage based on a transfer financial holdings, from queens to commoners.

My great grandmother started her house of prostitution during the Great Depression so her three children wouldn’t starve. As the sole breadwinner for a family of six, I’ve written certain books of mine with a very keen eye on market. (Others with no eye on market at all.) Wallace’s distaste for or more pointedly, perhaps, his fear of being perceived as a sell-out struck me, suddenly, like an enormously privileged posture.

But, don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame him; I never knew him. Instead I blame our weird culture that forces writers — and other artists — to choose between two extremes: the pure artist (sometimes called the starving artist) or the sell-out. It feels punitive, and, as soon as I cast my suspicious eye on our culture, these limited extremes feel really familiar to me as a woman. I’ve been here before.

Madonna or whore – and here we are back to prostitution. Or, as they put it in the Breakfast Club, a slut or a prude.

In retrospect, Wallace was struggling on many fronts and I can’t begin to imagine, and wouldn’t presume, the very serious mental health issues he was trying to work through. But I wish we could have erased these fears and just let the writer write.

To me, the snapshot of Wallace’s life that the film reveals is of a man who has fallen into trap of respect — art for art’s sake – and was held there so tightly that his fear of the commercial world that gets books to readers in exchange for cash had become almost crippling.

As a woman, I’ve figured out that there’s no good answer. You’ll most likely be ridiculed alternately as a slut and a prude, depending on the person who wants to bring you down a peg and why. And I’ll add here that our culture doesn’t always leave boys and men much room to hold a middle ground either.

So where does that leave us as writers? I believe that our culture is particularly hard on anyone who steps outside of the daily grind to pursue a life in the arts. We’re deemed uppity, full of ourselves. We deserve to struggle. To be worthy of this escape from an ordinary grind, we should sacrifice greatly. Some think we should be pure artists, willing to risk starvation. Others believe we should give back to the culture by providing entertainment that actually reaches out to the common man.

Some of you know yourselves very well. You know exactly the careers you want to have and have no ambivalence. Some of you want to write books for readers, books that sell and sell well. Others want a life of the literary arts, deeply carved. Some of you really don’t care how you’re perceived, especially by people who want to put you in your place.

These outside voices can also be really damaging. But what’s far more damaging is if you’ve internalized some of that dichotomous thinking.

So what if I’m right — and I’m easily talked out of all of this, but for the sake of argument — and if both the desire for readership and respect are traps? What are we writers who want one or the other — or, let’s face it, both — to do?

Well, I could tell you that to remain truly pure, you have to avoid both traps — the desire for readership and respect. In short: stop wanting either.

There are two problems I see right off.

A) I don’t think that’s possible. The desire will just be suppressed and likely come out in some strange way. (And, personally I’d rather not see someone try.)  [Read more…]