A little while ago — weeks ago? months ago? — one of my dearest friends texted me to say she’d just read a book that she thought I would enjoy: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I put it on my library hold list (I have so many books that I really only try to buy new ones if I’m supporting friends or if I really love them, a la Friday Black by Nana-Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, one of the rare short story collections that’s all killer, no filler, and which I purchased my own copy of after returning the borrowed one to the library).
Anyway. Earlier this week I got an email from the library telling me that it was finally — finally! — my chance to get ahold of the book (which is apparently quite popular!). The timing was good, as it coincided with my depression finally lifting enough to have the attention and focus to be able to read books again. Last night, I started the book; I’m currently about halfway through.
What follows isn’t exactly spoilers — I haven’t finished the book myself, so I can’t really spoil the ending for you — but I am going to reveal a small plot point that you might prefer to go into the book not knowing, so if you’re averse to knowing anything about books or their story arcs before you read them, I guess put this essay aside until after you’re at least 200 pages into The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
As for the rest of you:
I want to make clear upfront that I am enjoying the book, and the story is pretty good; the conceit of a reclusive Elizabeth Taylor type doing a tell all to a young writer looking for her big break is a compelling one. So in that respect, I am definitely enjoying the book. But there are times when the prose is especially clunky; oddly it’s at its worst when the modern day protagonist is the POV character rather than when we’re hearing about Evelyn’s salad days back in the 1950s. And it’s at its worst when anyone is speaking about identity: indeed, the problem first raised its head for me on the book’s third page, when I got to this bit:
And if I’m being honest, there is something very inspiring about having a black woman running things. As a biracial woman myself — light brown skin and dark brown eyes courtesy of my black father, an abundance of face freckles courtesy of my white mother — Frankie makes me feel more sure that I can one day run things, too.
When I read that, it just jumped out at me. It’s not the sentiment being expressed, per se — a mixed woman appreciating having a Black boss certainly makes sense — but something about the character’s self description just felt off, I guess, in a way I can’t exactly put it into words. But it definitely made me think that this was probably written by a white woman.
I flipped to the back of the book in search of the author photo, and while I was pretty sure I was looking at a white woman there was just enough ambiguity in her features that I wasn’t entirely sure (and also one can never quite tell a person’s ethnic background just from their face: my whiter than snow nephew has a Tigrayan grandma. It happens.). So I found myself googling “Taylor Jenkins Reid biracial” which is how I found this Bi.org piece which notes that Jenkins Reid is a straight white woman whose characters are biracial and bi.
You knew that part about one of the characters being bi was coming, right? I mean, why else would I be writing about this book in this newsletter, right?
If you go to that Bi.org piece (which, full disclosure, I’ve only skimmed for fear of spoilers), there’s a bit where the interviewer asks Jenkins Reid whether it’s her place to write stories from queer/WOC perspectives if she, herself, is straight and white. She gives the exact answer you’d expect from a white woman who wants people to read her book and also not be mad at her: it’s not her place, but she has a platform, and isn’t it better to use that platform to highlight marginalized folks’ stories than to just serve up yet another story of a woman who is straight and white?
I have mixed feelings on this. I mean first and foremost: marginalized people deserve our own platforms and the support to tell our own stories, that’s just an equity stance. But in terms of “representation” —
I’m not one of those “you should only tell stories about characters from your own identity” sticklers; taken to the logical extreme that stance requires all of us to write nothing beyond thinly veiled memoir. What I care about, truly, is whether someone is writing a story that is good, a story that feels honest, a story that has characters I actually believe in. And on that front, I have to admit that I am struggling with this book. Literally struggling, as in my feelings are mixed; as in I think there are good bits and bad bits and I don’t quite know which one wins out for me.
I, personally, did not go in knowing that someone was going to be bi in this book. Maybe my friend mentioned it — everyone thinks of me when they read bisexual books, for reasons that should be obvious — but by the time the book was actually in my hands, that little fact had left my brain; so when I saw the Bi.org piece I was actually a little surprised. “Someone is bisexual?” I thought. “I wonder who!”
The lead up to the reveal is subtle enough that I was pretty sure I knew what was happening but also didn’t feel like I was being hit over the head with it, which I appreciated. And when Jenkins Reid is describing her bi character’s erotic feelings for men and women, it doesn’t strike a false note for me (you may feel different). But then there’s stuff like this, which I’m going to edit the names out of in order to reduce the chance of spoilers:
“Haven’t you been listening to a single thing I’ve told you? I loved [woman], but I also, before her, loved [man]. In fact, I’m positive that if [man] hadn’t turned out to be a spectacular asshole, I probably never would have been capable of falling in love with someone else at all. I’m bisexual. Don’t ignore half of me so you can fit me into a box… Don’t do that.”
And once again, just like with that “I’m biracial” bit, it’s — I can’t quite put it into words, but this is the kind of paragraph where I’m like, “Oh, this was definitely written by a straight woman.” There’s other stuff in the scene, too, that I am leaving out because I don’t want to tread to far into spoiler territory, but to suffice it to say I came out of the chapter thinking only of that dreadful SNL sketch where a bunch of McDonaldland characters repeat the phrase “I’m bi, I like both” ad nauseam.
And then it goes back to the character talking about her feelings for both men and women, and suddenly it feels honest again. And this is why I feel so conflicted!
I can’t tell if what is bothering me here is that Jenkins Reid is stepping outside her own lane and clumsily showing that she truly doesn’t understand that a biracial woman probably isn't going to identify herself upfront by telling you which of her features come from which parent and what races they both are, or that bisexual people don’t talk like we’re characters in after school specials, that a coming out speech is more likely to be more about the emotions between the gaps of what is said than some forcefully uttered platitudes, or if the problem here is that Jenkins Reid is just a bad writer.
I mean, it could just be bad writing — the whole thing has the flavor of me as a third grader writing stories that opened, “Hi! I’m Jane! I’m eight years old and I have black hair and green eyes and my best friend is named Rachel” — and lord knows there are plenty of bad writers who are biracial or bisexual or both. But if it is bad writing, then it’s baffling to me that a lot of the book isn’t badly written, that the clumsiness seems to surface primarily when she’s talking about character identities, and specifically identities that are not her own.
It’s that inconsistency that leads me to believe that the problem here isn't so much that Jenkins Reid is an incompetent writer, but simply that she gets stilted when she steps outside her comfort zone, not only because of what she doesn’t know, but because of what she doesn't know that she doesn’t know. This is the problem, right? I’m certainly not going to say that it should be illegal for straight writers to write from bi perspectives, but I think there is a subtlety, a complexity, to the bi experience that goes beyond just finding people of multiple genders attractive, that goes beyond just fear of being found out, and while she handles those other bits capably, it’s in these finer details where Jenkins Reid’s writing seems to fall apart.
And again, it’s not that I think straight writers are fundamentally incapable of mastering those subtleties; certainly, a skilled enough writer can tackle many perspectives outside their own. But I think it requires not just talent, but also a significant amount of familiarity with the unspoken landscape of the bisexual experience — a landscape even many bi writers have difficulty thoughtfully traversing — in order to pull it off.
And while it’s possible I’ll change my mind after I read the final half of the book, I’m currently just wishing that Jenkins Reid had been slightly less ambitious in her scope.
(If you have read this book too I am curious about your perspective but please don’t spoil the end for me! Not just yet!)
It sounds like she is trying too hard to make sure that the biracial and bisexual stuff is obvious in the text and not just in the subtext. But just because a certain writer who shall not be named claimed a character was gay when there was no mention of it in the text doesn't mean that all queer characters have to stand up and state their identity just to make sure the the reader gets it.
It sounds like Reid and her editors are afraid that if characters don't state these things out loud, they won't get all the representation brownie points.
Absolutely, great insight, write a bi themed book please Lux, it’d be great I’m sure -
Your insight reminds me of people trying to use the Irish word ‘craic’ which on the face of it translates loosely as ‘fun’, but really is something much more akin to a feeling of deep cathartic bonding that is not accessible unless you have lived through the pain of an oppressed Irish upbringing - 😂