I recently listened to Robert J. Sawyer's Red Planet Blues as an audiobook. I was initially put off by the male reader's use of a breathy falsetto voice for all of the women characters, until I realized that this was perfectly in keeping with the style of the book. Noir detective Alex Lomax never meets a woman he doesn't first describe by the quality of her breasts. Indeed, his favorite waitress and semi-regular friend with benefits Diana serves drinks topless in a local watering hole. During the entire first part of the book (which was apparently originally a stand-alone novella), the only woman character with any agency turns out to be a man disguised in a female android body.
Frankly, I hated the book, but I stuck with it out of a dogged determination to outlast the vapidity of the female characters and the constant grating of an audiobook reader who couldn't do women's voices. Despite the book's flaws, I wanted to find out what happened in the end.
And by the end, I had an important moment of revelation. Alex Lomax was a jerk who thought of women as vapid interior decoration---Lomax, the character, not Sawyer, the author.
As readers, it can be hard to remember that the voice in our heads telling us the story is not always the author's, particularly when the main character is flawed in an unlikeable way.
As writers, it points out the challenges of writing characters that are in some ways unsympathetic. Should we only write characters that everyone will like, or use voices that aren't controversial, or only tell stories that are safe and inoffensive? Of course not. But I think we have to be aware that the voices we use will be mistakenly believed to be our own, even when they're not, and be prepared to absorb some criticism from readers who have not yet had the realization that I had about Alex Lomax.
Frankly, I hated the book, but I stuck with it out of a dogged determination to outlast the vapidity of the female characters and the constant grating of an audiobook reader who couldn't do women's voices. Despite the book's flaws, I wanted to find out what happened in the end.
And by the end, I had an important moment of revelation. Alex Lomax was a jerk who thought of women as vapid interior decoration---Lomax, the character, not Sawyer, the author.
As readers, it can be hard to remember that the voice in our heads telling us the story is not always the author's, particularly when the main character is flawed in an unlikeable way.
As writers, it points out the challenges of writing characters that are in some ways unsympathetic. Should we only write characters that everyone will like, or use voices that aren't controversial, or only tell stories that are safe and inoffensive? Of course not. But I think we have to be aware that the voices we use will be mistakenly believed to be our own, even when they're not, and be prepared to absorb some criticism from readers who have not yet had the realization that I had about Alex Lomax.
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