The role of fiction for ABILITY

Written by Administrator

Saturday, 14 May 2011 05:40

Published by ABILITY magazine (April 2011) THE ROLE OF FICTION I received an irate email recently, from a reader who felt that one of my books (‘Secrets & Sins’) was frothy and insubstantial and had wasted both her time and her money. Of course, this accusation irked me at first, not only because the book did in fact tackle the serious theme of adultery – albeit couched within the light format of a love story – but also because I’ve always believed that it is the place of a novel to entertain, not effect social change. This is particularly true of commercial fiction, the genre my ‘Secrets’ series belongs to, one in which editors breathe very heavily down the neck of a writer who fails to employ every trick in the book to keep pages turning. Bogging the pace with didactic messages, unless these can be delivered with the deftest touch, is severely frowned upon. Nevertheless, as I make it a point to respond to all emails, good or bad, a short exchange followed with my annoyed correspondent in which I hopefully managed to convey the restrictions within which I do my job. For my part, I found that the reader worked with an NGO that helped empower dispossessed women and, obviously, this was all I needed to put the anger of her original email into perspective. The exchange did, however, make me re-examine the novelist’s dilemma of owning a public platform and yet having to resist the temptation of using it to make some important moral point. Not that I don’t believe that everyone who can should indeed help in some way to help improve our very flawed world but I personally prefer not to mix what I think are two very disparate areas of work, and surely that is my choice? Curiously, I am also riled by people who say that Arundhati Roy should stick to writing novels when she turned her attention to social activism for she too is entitled to use her writing talent in whichever way she wants. Of course, some very skilled writers manage to do both – subtly inserting ‘difficult’ themes into their novels in a light and accessible manner. The Irish commercial fiction novelist, Marian Keyes, is my own favourite at this game, having dealt with an issue as dark as domestic violence in ‘This Charming Man’ and, more recently, mental depression in ‘The Brightest Star in the Sky’. Happily, I too still receive grateful emails from readers of my first book, ‘Ancient Promises’, which is partially the story of a young woman who comes to terms with the birth of a daughter with a learning disability. I am always quick to admit that I had initially only set out to write a love story. But, that the book inadvertently threw light on the issue of disability and in some cases – I have been told – helped others deal bravely with their own situations, is something of an unexpected and heartwarming bonus for me.

Last Updated on Friday, 08 December 2017 04:53