O P I N I O N

NOT THAT PROFOUND

By Nathan Graziano

According to some people on the internet, between now and the time I finish this column, I might vanish. I’ll start to write a sentence and…

Poof. I’m gone. 

I discovered the unsettling fact that I might vanish at any moment while working through the final edits on my collection of short stories, “A Better Loser,” which will be published by Roadside Press in the fall. I was working diligently when my gnat-like attention span shifted from the manuscript to a social media post about the decline and possible extinction of white male writers—particularly straight white males—from the literary landscape. 

As far I can tell, some of this discussion stems from an article published in Compact, an online magazine, titled “The Vanishing White Male Writer” by Jacob Savage. Savage’s contention, in a nutshell, is that woke culture and the female dominance in the publishing industry has squeezed out the straight white male’s voice. 

Not everyone, however, agrees with Savage. In Current Affairs Magazine, Alex Skopic took issue with what he perceived as Savage’s whininess about not being published and a desire to create click-bait with a rebuttal called “The White Male Writer Is Fine, I Promise.” 

So which one is it? Am I going to make it through this column, or not?  

As far as I can tell, both men are making some legitimate points here. It is true, and the data supports it, that the big publishing industry, once a boys’ club like so many industries in this country, has shifted toward female control. A majority of literary agents, the gatekeepers to publishing with the Big Five, are now female, as are the majority of the staff for book publishers.

There is also the fact that it is largely women these days who are reading fiction, while the number of Americans on the whole who actually read books has been on a steady decline since the advent of the smartphone, streaming services and social media.

However, men are not being entirely shut out of the publishing industry, and Savage’s argument does seem to be narrowly confined to a specific type of a book, which is sometimes referred to as “realism” or “literary fiction” and doesn’t include genre fiction, which accounts for most of the novels sold these days. 

For the record, my story collection, which would probably fall under the umbrella of literary fiction, is not being published by a big publishing house. In fact, all of the books I’ve published to date have been released by small, independent presses who publish books largely as a labor of love and are not as concerned about bottom lines. 

Way back when, after finishing an MFA in fiction writing, I signed with a literary agent—who was, indeed, a female—who represented my first novel. It was shopped around to the big publishers and had a few bites, but no book deal. I wrote a second novel with the same results, and ultimately my agent and I parted ways. 

But I don’t believe this was because I’m a straight white male, or that you can’t sell books written by straight white males anymore. It largely has to do with the fact that the type of books that I write do not have a large commercial appeal. 

Are readers tired of hearing about the struggles of straight white guys who are sad? Probably. But it doesn’t mean that the books are without merit.

There is also the fact that I mentioned earlier, which should be daunting for any writer these days, whether you’re a straight white male or a transgender, polyamorous Middle Easterner: fewer people are buying and reading books.

When was the last time you were sitting in a waiting room at a doctor’s office and saw someone with a book cracked open, as opposed to staring at their phones?

For me, writing books is not about the big payday. Almost no one not named Stephen King can make a living writing fiction anymore, and many of the most talented novelists now write for television or the big screen. 

While I certainly would not include my name on any list of the most talented fiction writers, I still write books because I have to write these books. I can’t necessarily tell you why I have to write them, but I do. And I am entirely grateful to anyone who takes the time away from their own lives to read them. 

So as I finish this column, I suppose you have your answer. I’m not going to vanish, but I’m not going to crack the bestseller list, either. I’m a 50-year-old, straight white male and I still have something to say, and you can decide for yourself whether or not you want to hear it.    

Nathan Graziano cares what you think, for the most part. Let it rip at ngrazio5@yahoo.com