Last week we talked about James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, and who is “allowed” to be bad in fiction. Here’s some of what you had to say:
Mary D. wrote: “Great piece, and what immediately popped into my head was the reaction of Black men to Alice Walker's The Color Purple. An angry uproar about her presentation of Black men was what I remember. To all of this anger, I get it. Representation does matter. Decades of stereotyping in popular culture and in literature does imprint. Many groups get tired of always being depicted negatively. On the other hand, I did not, when reading these books (and others), ever think that a single character (or a small group of characters) was representing every real person in that group. (Does this make me an outlier? Do people read a book and then say, ‘Well, now I have proof from this Asian author that all Asian men are bad and my prejudice that I had about Asian men is now reinforced.’)”
Lisa B. wrote: “As I live and teach, I don’t find that life is a positive experience every day. There are joys and pains and that is what’s real. If one wants to duck from the negativity, believing that we all have a ‘happily ever after’ ending, they are not learning about grit, resilience or compassion. Another truth is that, the good and the bad, the happy and the sad, are what give life its richness and beauty, and make it worthwhile and valuable to share with others.”
Kathy M. wrote: “I can totally see how someone might read a book to find positive role models or tools they can use to get through life. However, I don’t think writers should have the responsibility of only writing positive books or role models … if that were true, maybe some genres (like horror?) might go away? Not good. Personally, my favorite kinds of books are those that present other lifestyles in a way that they are just a secondary part of the story. Some examples of books that I think do this magnificently are TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea (one of my VERY favorite books!!! | 
