THE PRIVATE AUTHOR—GOOD OR BAD? - Late Last Night Books

9/10/2015. THE PRIVATE AUTHOR—GOOD OR BAD?

Once upon a time authors were mysterious people, stereotyped as starving artists scratching with their pens or pecking on their typewriters in lonely garrets. William Shakespeare, for example, is a shadowy figure. We know about the times he lived in, but not a lot about him personally. The best insights we have about him lie in the words he wrote—his plays and poetry. Then came newspapers, radio, and television, and authors had the opportunity to reveal more of themselves to their readers. Today with the internet and social media, authors can share everything—in real time, even—if they want to. But as a reader, how much do you really want to know about the authors of the novels you read? And how does knowing so much affect what you think of their books?

I can see a few pitfalls in knowing too much. Sometimes, when readers know a great deal about an author, they have trouble separating the author from the novel. Writers are inevitably asked if their fiction is autobiographical and their characters are people they know. If their backgrounds and interests mesh at all with their settings and characters—and their readers know about the similarities—readers may have a harder time understanding that the fictive world is a world apart from anything else. The protagonist is not the author.

We also know of authors who’ve gained or lost readers because they made their social, political, or religious beliefs known. In a blog post on DearAuthor.com a few years ago, a commenter said she loved Nora Roberts, especially after she read about the things Roberts was doing to improve the town in which she lived. In the same post another commenter noted that she couldn’t keep what she knew of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound from interfering with her pleasure in their poetry. Lately there seems to be a rash of authors revealing their arrogance, which tends to make me shun their books. I’m probably missing some good fiction, but I can’t help it.

Porter Anderson, a journalist, critic, and speaker specializing in publishing, wrote on WriterUnboxed.com last year that he likes some mystique about the books he reads and social media could be draining that mystique. I like mystique, too. I’ve never understood why any reader wants to know about an author’s writing routine, things like whether the author writes in the morning or uses a pen for first drafts. Routine is routine—nothing magic there. Seeing it is like seeing the puppet master pulling the strings. The magic is in the words on the page.

Some of my favorite authors—Richard Russo, for example—share very little of their private lives, and that’s okay with me.

So, as a reader would you rather know the personal habits, likes, and dislikes of an author or approach his or her work as a piece of art fending for itself? Cecilia Galante, author of The Invisibles, said recently on BookClubGirl.com that she thought readers like to get a little glimpse into an author’s world so that when it comes time to read the words the author put on the page, they can feel as though they have just the slightest bit of understanding of where the author came from.

Is that true or do the words on the page do best standing on their own? What do you think? And if you want to know about the authors whose novels you read, what do you want to know?

Sally Whitney

Sally Whitney is the author of When Enemies Offend Thee and Surface and Shadow, available now from Pen-L Publishing, Amazon.com, and Barnesandnoble.com. When Enemies Offend Thee follows a sexual-assault victim who vows to get even on her own when her lack of evidence prevents police from charging the man who attacked her. Surface and Shadow is the story of a woman who risks her marriage and her husband’s career to find out what really happened in a wealthy man’s suspicious death.

Sally’s short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies, including Best Short Stories from The Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest 2017, Main Street Rag, Kansas City Voices, Uncertain Promise, Voices from the Porch, New Lines from the Old Line State: An Anthology of Maryland Writers and Grow Old Along With Me—The Best Is Yet to Be, among others. The audio version of Grow Old Along With Me was a Grammy Award finalist in the Spoken Word or Nonmusical Album category. Sally’s stories have also been recognized as a finalist in The Ledge Fiction Competition and semi-finalists in the Syndicated Fiction Project and the Salem College National Literary Awards competition.