‘Smut’ and Reading: Debating Urban Fiction
by Calvin Reid, PW Show Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 5/21/2006
Book professionals worried about the future of reading should take heart after a panel on the popularity and explicit content of urban fiction turned into a rambunctious town hall debate on what African-American consumers are buying and reading—street lit and erotica—and perhaps what they should be reading instead. In front of crowded and passionately engaged audience, the panel—novelist and moderator Nick Chiles, urban fiction novelist Nikki Turner, bestselling novelist Benilde Little and S&S editor Malaika Adero—set out discuss the issues around urban fiction, books set in the black community and often focused on themes of fast money, drug dealing, prison life and sex, sex, sex.
Initially called "Their Eyes Were Watching Smut"—the title, but not its topic, was changed at the last minute—the panel was first named after a January New York Times op-ed piece by Chiles bemoaning the ever-growing popularity of a hip-hop–influenced, sometimes self-published category called urban fiction or street lit, a category he claims is overwhelming bookstore shelves, crowding out serious fiction and nonfiction and having negative effects on young readers. His point, shared on the panel by Benilde Little, is that the popular category is leaving a one-dimensional portrait of the black community. On the other side are writers like Nikki Turner, author of The Hustler's Wife and Project Chick—a writer whose books define the category and who has since moved from urban fiction house Triple Crown Publications to Random House.
Chiles challenged the motives of booksellers and mainstream publishers, claiming both were obsessed with the profitable category despite what he sees as a negative reflection on the African-American community. And Chiles and Little lamented a lack of quality writing in urban fiction. Said Little, "A lot of these books have sex and nothing else. If I'm getting nothing from a book, I've got to move on."
But Adero, who publishes black erotic author Zane, countered that both camps could learn from one another. "Urban fiction writers can look at literary authors—their care and concern for writing—and literary writers can come down out of their ivory tower and learn a lot from street-lit writers about how to develop a relationship with their readers."
But no matter the opinion on the quality of street lit, its authors are relentless in getting their books in front of the readers who either identify with the struggles of the characters or, like Americans black or white, just enjoy a lively gangster story. Indeed black booksellers in the audience rallied behind Turner and urban fiction, citing their popularity, challenging stereotypes about street-lit readers and claiming the importance of giving customers what they want. One San Francisco black bookseller noted that "90% of my street lit customers are black professional women, not teens."
As the discussion continued, there was a long line of audience members, booksellers, readers, street-lit writers and publishers jockeying to get the microphone to speak, often defending and praising street lit—and the importance of reading and books in their lives—with a passion that would inspire any book publishing professional, no matter what kinds of books they favor. At the end of the panel, a bookseller from the local six-store black bookstore chain Karibou Books suggested that booksellers could do both: "We have a responsibility to represent our communities and offer the books that our customers want."
