Is literary society monocultural? On that Quilette opinion piece by Matthew Binder

Occasionally, news happens in the literary world with enough noise, even my non-literary friends hear about it. That's what happened when Matthew Binder, author of the soon-to-be-launched novel The Absolved, posted an opinion piece on Quillette on Friday. I actually heard about it from a mathematician friend before I started seeing literature folks posting about it.

There's not much controversial in the novel he wrote, it seems. It's a futuristic piece about the world of 2036, in which automation and AI have replaced nearly all the meaningful work in the world, leaving humankind listless. Binder compares the concerns of humanity in the 2036 of his novel to those of various groups in the 2016 election, only now, "they've gone beyond demagoging foreigners and immigrants, and are going after machines."

Sounds interesting enough, and probably timely, although the first thing it made me think of was how much it sounds like Kurt Vonnegut's novel Player Piano, which already was looking at themes like this sixty years ago. (I can't believe this novel of Vonnegut's isn't studied more. Unlike most of his work, the specific apocalyptic element in this one--much of humanity left without meaningful work to do--seems like a real threat in my children's lifetime.) But I'd have maybe been interested enough in the novel's premise to buy it, assuming reviews came in somewhat favorably.

What caused the fuss

What caused the fuss wasn't the novel, it was Binder's discussion of what it took to get the novel published. While working the literary circuit in New York, trying to find a sympathetic agent or publisher, Binder found two things: a homogeneously extreme liberal political mindset within publishing, and a prejudice against new, white, male authors.

As proof of the first characteristic of literary culture in New York, Binder offers the events of parties he went to, parties where Trump's America was routinely described as "fascist." Binder claims this view of politicians as fascist extended even to New York's centrist Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo.

Binder's proof of a bias against white male authors--or at least new, white, male authors--by the publishing powers-that-be comes from specific setbacks he faced in trying to publish his book. Assuming the things he claims happened really happened to him--and I have no reason to think they didn't--then his case is mildly compelling. He claims one acquisitions editor from an independent press showed interest, but this interest was blunted by the editor's boss, who sent an email (which the editor showed Binder) saying "We're not taking on unknown white guys this year."

Binder also says an agent scolded him for "bigotry" because his novel includes a successful Muslim revolt in Paris in the future. Another said the novel was "misogynist" because the main character--whom, Binder stresses, is an intentionally highly flawed anti-hero--was no longer attracted to his wife. A third basically said most readers are female, and the distinctly male voice of the novel would not resonate with them.

The reaction

I was especially struck with the reaction of Julie Barer on Twitter. Barer is an extremely successful New York literary agent. Her list of clients includes some powerhouses. She was the first agent I tried to pitch my novel to, partly because I studied under Luis Urrea, one of her clients, and I hoped (even though Urrea never answered my email to him) that this might give me some kind of in. Not surprisingly, I got a no.

Here's what Barer wrote on Twitter about this article:

Flaws in this reasoning

She's a major agent and probably has a much better sense of the industry than Binder does from his two years of struggling to publish a novel. I do think, though, that there might be some logical flaws in what she posted here.

First, her proofs she cites that men are doing fine are somewhat arbitrarily picked. It's like when you see those lists of "spooky coincidences" between Kennedy and Lincoln's deaths. Granted some of these things are true, do they really mean that much? For example, so only two of the top ten writers on the NYT Fiction list were women (actually, when I checked, it was three of ten). But six of the top thirteen were women. Next month, it might be six women out of ten. What does one week's list tell you? And how many of the top 100 are women?

Similarly, are last year's Pulitzer and Nobel that meaningful? In 2016, the Nobel for Literature went to Bob Dylan, so how much does the award really even matter to anyone anymore? I don't know how "top paid authors" is measured. When I think of really rich authors, I think of J.K. Rowling, E.L. James, and Stephenie Meyer, all women. I believe Barer's statistic about the top five, but I think there are probably enough high-paid female authors that the profession isn't really a patriarchy, at least not when it comes to money.

Much more importantly, though, Binder's opinion piece wasn't really about the literary world being anti-male or anti-white. It was about it being homogeneous, both politically and aesthetically, and it being difficult for an outside voice to break in. Binder claimed that the publishing industry eschewed profit for ideology. The things Barer said about the industry could be true and still completely vindicate what Binder wrote; if men are popular and sell well, surely, Binder would argue, that's a reason for getting more of them published?

Not really an endorsement, just a reminder that not being all right doesn't mean he's all wrong

It's tempting to give in to all-or-nothing thinking here. Either Binder's all right and the literary community is full of hypocritical ideologues, or he's all wrong and just whining about the world not immediately falling at his feet for a book that doesn't really sound all that original. We ought to avoid this kind of either-or thinking.

Binder's anecdotal evidence doesn't cement the case that publishers rabidly enforce a political orthodoxy, but I've certainly felt there is some evidence for this same thing. I'm center-left with a smattering of center-right or libertarian-leaning ideology, and I've often felt that's not nearly left enough when I hang out at literary gatherings. Being pretty far left is the assumed political ideology in literary fiction. Like Binder, I've also felt that I needed to keep quiet in certain literary circles and not say things like, "Are you sure Trump's America is actually fascist and not just potentially so?" This, even though I genuinely cannot stand to hear Donald Trump speak. It's not enough to dislike him; I have to believe he's actually Satan incarnate. 

Binder's work might not be that great. Many people commenting on Barer's tweet opined that the sample passage from his book sounded somewhat south of virtuosic. I'd agree with them. If I were judging on it, I probably would have passed. It's not bad, but it's also not scintillating. It's mid-range sci-fi writing, suffering from the typical sci-fi flaw of trying to explain everything about the universe in frequent asides. 

But it's too much to say Binder is just being petulant. For one thing, petulance is a pretty common reaction to being a new writer. My early blog posts are a testament to that. That just comes with the territory. You can write well and still get nowhere, and it's very hard to accept that. Assumptions that the game is rigged come kind of naturally. 

Furthermore, NOT accepting rejection can be a healthy trait. Binder continues to believe in himself even after extensive failure. That might have something to do with why he's got a novel coming out and my novel is still looking for a home. Stubborn belief in oneself might be annoying, but it's also effective more often than it's not. 

I've learned to accept that when I get rejection, it sometimes really is about me. That's been a hard lesson. I still have a tough time believing that someone like me, with a growing list of publication credits and a deep background in an important subject that no literary fiction writer has ever had, can forever keep failing to get my novel published, but I also don't think it's a conspiracy. It just hasn't happened yet. Partly, that's my lack of persistence. Binder is persistent, and his persistence extends to stubborn faith in his work even after frequent rejection. Maybe he could use a little more of the humility I've learned, but that's not a reason to hate him. If it weren't for his brashness, we wouldn't have read anything from him to begin with. 

Just take the evidence he offers for what it is

Binder offered anecdotal evidence of his experience and drew some conclusions from it. We can reject his conclusions, but the anecdotes themselves must mean something. You don't have to end up thinking that every publisher and agent in New York is a hypocritical fool. I certainly don't. I assume they work in a business, they know the business, and they generally have sound business-based reasons for the decisions they make. If it's hard to break in as a new white male writer, there are societal and market-driven reasons for this that have nothing to do with ideology. But if the things Binder said happened to him--and I think they probably did--then that means SOMETHING. 

Ultimately, my concern is twofold. First, America is becoming more polarized. I mean this in a literal sense: not just that we are disagreeing more, but that opposing sides are actually becoming more ideologically distinct. Republicans are getting more conservative and Democrats more liberal. That's not something in Binder's imagination. The Pew Research Center found in 2014 that "median Republicans polled as more conservative that 94 percent of Democrats (up from 70 percent twenty years earlier), whereas Democrats were more liberal than 92 percent of Republicans (up from 64 percent in 1994)." (Quote taken from the Times Literary Supplement, 10-26-2018, in a review by Eric Ianelli on two books looking at modern horror stories.)

This means you can no longer be a Democrat without being a complete Democrat, without accepting your party's full platform, preferably of the more extreme varieties, just to be safe. This doesn't seem healthy for America. There is no consensus to build. There is only winner-take-all war. 

Secondly, I'm concerned about the influence of literature. Agents and publicists are making, I'm sure, what they think are the best choices in order to stay alive, but literature is so small a part of American public discourse now, if it becomes any less a part of public discourse it won't be part of it at all. This isn't mostly publishers' fault, of course. There are macro-forces at work in society to make literature less influential. But I don't think Binder is off to think that publishers are hurting themselves by giving America what those publishers want to read themselves rather than what America wants to read. The choices now are thoughtless and mainstream or thoughtful but somewhat fringe and alienating. This while the Golden Age of Television is giving us countless choices that are politically mainstream but still intellectually challenging. 

Binder might irritate some in publishing with his observations, but they will ignore him at their own peril. They don't have to like him, but they ought to pay some attention to what he said, or they'll end up like characters in his story, looking for any kind of meaningful work to be had.