Getting Re-Sensitized to Violence

In the September issue of Standpoint Magazine, Jessica Mann - a regular reviewer for the Literary Review and a writer of crime fiction for over 35 years - expressed her disgust over how a number of crime titles she gets for review increasingly resort to graphic violence:

When a female corpse appeared on the jacket of a crime-writing colleague's new book, she pointed out to her publisher that the victim in the story was actually a man. Never mind that, came the reply, dead, brutalised women sell books, dead men don't. Nor do dead children or geriatrics. Which explains why an increasing proportion of the crime fiction I am sent to review features male perpetrators and almost invariably female victims — series of them.  Each psychopath is more sadistic than the last and his victims' sufferings are described in detail that becomes ever more explicit, as young women are imprisoned, bound, gagged, strung up or tied down, raped, sliced, burned, blinded, beaten, eaten, starved, suffocated,  stabbed, boiled or buried alive. 

And so, having had enough, Mann concluded: "So however many more outpourings of sadistic misogyny are crammed on to the bandwagon, no more of them will be reviewed by me."

Almost two months later, after a bit of discussion by Martin Edwards and Maxine Clarke, now the broadsheets have climbed aboard this old bandwagon and blown it up to their liking. Instead of just giving up on serial killer thrillers and uber-violent crime novels, now Mann is purported to be quitting reviewing altogether, which makes for a catchy headline but isn't quite the truth (oh, well that's so inconvenient.)

But Mann's out-of-context statements aside, here we are, back on another go-round of a conversation that's raged in crime fiction circles for years. Are we too desensitized to violence, as Val McDermid says in the Observer piece that's been cited most this weekend? Or, as Transworld publishing director for crime Selina Walker says in the same piece, is it that "readers like to be vicariously frightened by stories of what's going on in the wicked world outside but closure is always a total given?"

The answers are manifold, depending on perspective as a reader or writer, and what sort of threshold is in place for how much is acceptable, violence-wise, within the pages of a crime novel. (And I agree with Steve Mosby - you want real, disgusting, balls-to-the-wall violence, read a horror novel.) But all the discussion about graphic violence masks what seems to me the larger issue: if all the other elements of a crime novel work, then be as violent as necessary, because if I'm engaged by the characters, when they go through turmoil, I feel alongside them and the cause and effect is heightened that much more. But too many novels of an uber-violent bent that I've picked up lately - no names, because I never got far enough into such books to count them as "read" - think that violence for violence's sake, without taking the time to invest in believable characters or a good story or making sure I, as a reader, actually care about what's going on, will save the book. It doesn't. And as a result, the serial killing action turns into cliche and bores the ever living crap out of me.

Consider, too, that as scary and lurid and disgusting as some of these books are (at least to Mann), the problem is exacerbated by their being an orderly ending that dispenses with the unruly, graphic chaos. The reality is more mundane, and thus, more scary. I spent the past weekend reading up on an unknown killer now dubbed EAR-ONS, whose pathology is orderly, fascinatingly textbook, and - by virtue of being a phantom who suddenly stopped in 1986, that much scarier than fiction. I've read a lot about serial killers, real and fictional, and yet this purported recording of the UNSUB's voice* is one of the creepiest I have ever heard (it didn't help that I clicked on the link late at night.) 

Chances are, if EAR-ONS is ever caught, his backstory will prove to be as unscriptable and unspeakable as that of Dennis Rader, whose unmasking as the BTK Killer proved to hinge on a twist so stupid - the metadata on a 3.5" floppy disk - it would never pass muster in a novel. But it's the little things, the most incidental ones, that really resolve order into chaos, turn horrible violence into a proper narrative - and when such connections, and more importantly, emotions are lost in the pursuit of telling yet another cliche-filled story, everyone loses out.

UPDATE: The Observer updated its article with the following note: "This article was amended on Tuesday 27 October 2009. We previously said that one of the country's leading crime writers and critics "is refusing to review new books" but that should have been "is refusing to review some violent new books". This has been corrected." That's because Mann left comments on various websites as follows: "I never said and it is not the case that I’m giving up reviewing. What I did say is that I’ve had enough torture-porn – which is a very small subsection of crime fiction – and won’t review that any more."

UPDATE 2: Val McDermid responds with an essay in the Guardian about how Mann's complaints mask the real point, as she sets out in the first couple of paragraphs:

Remember the Golden Age of detective fiction? Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Margery Allingham ... Well, yes. But the person who sold more books back in the 30s than all of them rolled together was a poisonous Little Englander called Sydney Horler whose books were badly written, brutish, nasty, antisemitic, homophobic misogynies that sold by the barrowload. They've since fallen into obscurity, known only to keen students of the darker corners of the genre.

So what's my point? Well, I have two. One is that quality lasts and rubbish meets its deserved fate. The other is that there have always been books that rely on something other than quality to make their mark.

And if a lot of the schlocky crap sucks, it will not endure. Simple as that.

*According to the EAR-ONS website, "the last known contact made by the EAR/ONS was a phone call that he made to one of his victims either in 1990 or 1991." Unfortunately I haven't been able to find independent corroboration, so I have no idea why the UNSUB would have called one of his victims years after his last known murder, or if this event took place.

Comments

[I.J.Parker]

Quite right! Mann, of course, objects because such stuff exploits women and may be dangerous by its suggestiveness. But essentially the problem with such books is that they have become utterly boring for some of us.

[Jamie Freveletti]

When did we turn the corner and decide that killing was not "bad" enough to merit our fear? And why women? I worked with the prosecutor for John Wayne Gacy-none of his victims were women-the images of the actual site stay with me to this day and I won't read serial killers if I can help it. Nor Dahmer. I agree with Mann-and blogged about violence in regards to what a reader said to me--she can no longer pass on certain books and will not read graphic violence anymore. My question remains: is it required to write such things in our current society--or as writers are we reaching for the lowest common denominator rather than doing the hard work of plotting and character development?

[Maxine]

I agree very much with your article, Sarah - both in your witty skewering of the "news"paper/media coverage (highly inaccurate and overgeneralising as well as old) and what you write about characters and believability.
There are some books I just don't read any more, those whose plots actually are a set of ghastly killings one after the other. I don't mind the odd violent scene if it is there to drive a plot in some way (eg Stieg Larsson GWDT which is the topic of some banter on Friend Feed). The main point is, of course, that none of this applies exclusively to crime fiction (or horror fiction or any other kind of fiction). I thought the Observer piece highly superficial, unlike your blog post.

[Steven Torres]

Well, yes and no...On the one hand, real killers are often horribly violent. It might be Colonel Mustard in the library with a candlestick, but what he does with that candlestick might leave you with nightmares... On the other, some writers overemphasize the violence without there seeming to be a discernible point to it. It's not an attempt at social commentary or a realistic touch, it's just violence.

When a serious crime novel is written about Afghanistan or Iraq (they may have already been written, my TBR pile is backed up to about Herodotus...) the violence will have to be grisly if it's going to portray just daily life let alone crime.

Just think: there are five year olds around the world who have seen and experienced violence that would make our novelized serial killers, be they never so gruesome, shiver.

[Bill Crider]

I wonder if Mann's been to any of the SAW movies. Violence has become much greater over the years in both books and movies. One upmanship? I don't know, but it's pulling a lot of people into the theaters. As for my own work, it's usually pretty cozy, but I've written one violent serial killer book. Guess which of my novels has sold by far the most copies, been translated into the most languages, etc.

[tess gerritsen]

I once polled my women readers if they liked serial killer books. They gave me an enthusiastic YES, but also added that they only wanted to read books in which the victims are women. "What about male victims?" I asked them.

"We don't care about those," was the almost universal reply.

Let's not forget that kids are fondest of scary children's books in which children are threatened.

The conclusion I draw from that? Readers who read scary books identify with the victims. If they can't picture themselves as the victim, then they just don't find the experience as frightening, or as thrilling.

Since the vast majority of fiction readers are women, you'll be disastrously slashing your sales if you ignore what women want.

[Marty Ison]

I agree. Can anything re-sensitize us to violence? I hope so. Maybe exposure to suspense created by artists able to conjure up a looming presence, and sustain its specter for three hundred pages, can recondition readers to want deeper satisfaction.

But maintaining suspense is more difficult than slopping gore by the bucket. Are we up to the challenge? If not, constant readers will turn somewhere else for entertainment.

I acknowledge that explicit violence can be crucial to character arc, turning points, and plot development. But I also agree with Jessica Mann that there is an underlying misogyny (if only through acquiescence) in indiscriminate graphic murder and mutilation of women when it appears in novels only for shock.

[Richard S. Wheeler]

This appears to be a jading process, in which readers grow accustomed to one level of carnage and escalate to the next. But it also seems plain that literary carnage is near the maximum, and when that evokes widespread jadedness, such sales will fall off sharply. The same trend is evident in genre western fiction.

[Margaret]

Here's the New Yorker blog comment on the piece in the Guardian, and resultant reaction: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2009/10/feminists-love-mutilated-women.html#entry-more

To me, much depends on whether the author takes some time and effort, or shows the ability and inclination to treat the women in the novels as more than cartoon victims, and the violence as having consequences. It is hardly the most violent book, but I found it distasteful and greatly damaging to the book "Beat The Reaper" when the author has his hero perform oral sex on his dazed and virtually comotose girlfriend in the same pool where her brother lies in shark-ravaged pieces, in order to titilate the reader. Okay fine, but then the author asks for out deep sympathy for the narrator over what happens to that girlfriend -- as if we will take seriously a protagonist who out-Polanski's Polanski. The author wants not to take the violence seriously, so that he can invoke the "oh, cool" reflex in some of his readers, and then wants us to care about the character because of the violence.

I use this example because it is not the worst of the slasher genre (and isn't in the slasher genre) but for that reason seems to me to illustrate the problem when the author doesn't take his women seriously. It trivializes the book, and perhaps, just perhaps, contributes to greater social problems.

[stevemosby]

Jamie -

"My question remains: is it required to write such things in our current society--or as writers are we reaching for the lowest common denominator rather than doing the hard work of plotting and character development?"

That's a bit harsh. Surely conflict is the essence of character (character, really, is nebulous until you start bouncing it off the boundaries of the world around it). So why can't an explicitly violent scene be revealing of character, in that it's an extreme form of interaction?

[tess gerritsen]

Steve, I so agree with your comment.

It seems that some people are equating the depiction of violence with ham-handed, talentless writing, as if violence in and of itself shows a lack of skill. Yes, I've read unimpressive novels that seemed unnecessarily violent. But I've also read graphically gory novels that were mutli-layered, moving, and skillful.

This conversation is a bit like saying "all books that have dogs in them are, by definition, trash."

[Richard S. Wheeler]

A distinguished commentator on the decline of civilizations, whose name eludes me, noted that the true test is whether those who are behaving in a barbaric manner are aware that they are barbaric. If they don't see where their own values and conduct are leading them and the world they inhabit, they truly are the destroyers of a civilization.

[Dana King]

I still don't understand this whole "wanting to be the victim" thing. With children, I understand it. There's a lot of the world kids don't understand, so they're afraid of it. They see a kid with the same fears they have, and the fictional kid comes out all right, which helps to allay the real kid's fears. Or the fictional kid doesn't do what he should do, and doesn't come out all right. (Or narrowly escapes.) This can be re-assuring to kids.

Adult women are--or should be--a different matter. They know better. They should understand the half dozen women who were viciously murdered for no better purpose than to increase the stakes (God how I hate that term and the artificial application of the technique) need to be thought of as real, too. It's violence porn.

[tess gerritsen]

Women read these books not because they want to be victims. When they identify with the fictional victim, they feel more invested in the mystery plot, because it could happen to them. And it's important to remember the other element all these stories have in common: the woman triumphs. She conquers the demons and comes out the victor. That journey of victim to victor is such a powerful theme that it resonates with everyone, both male and female. It's a variant of the "rags to riches" story that we all love. The downtrodden peasant becomes a knight. The lone survivor of the slaughtered village becomes Conan the Barbarian.

[stevemosby]

Dana -

I don't think people want to be the victim, as such. The way I see it, the 'conventional' serial killer novel is a 'defeating the monster' narrative: often an almost direct port-over from the horror genre. Compare the serial killer with the vampire, for example. Comes into your home at night; a sexual element to the crime; a Van Helsing/profiler to explain the rules; etc. They work on the same level. Most monsters are humanoid with exaggerated or alien characteristics, and the serial killer is a perfect fit for that on so many levels.

And at the heart of that narrative, for a monster to be a monster worthy of conquering, it has to have killed a few people.

Leaving the sex/gender issue aside, I think a lot of people (genuinely not directed at anyone here, specifically) are analysing the serial killer sub-genre the way they would The Wire. But, with rare exceptions, these aren't social commentaries. They're scary adventure stories, which, even if they change to suit the times, never lose their innate appeal.

[stevemosby]

Tess - you beat me, damn it!

[I.J.Parker]

The problem with serial killer plots is that they are repetitive and predictable. They should make the reader shake his head at the ineptitude of the "monster slayers" who have to remain ignorant or confused until the prerequisite 400 pages are up. With that sort of drag, no wonder the violence has to be ratchetted up and varied over and over again to give the reader some satisfaction along the way. And that's a voyeur's sport far more often then a psychological analysis of the torturer's personality.
And yet, people buy and read and will continue to do so. I'm sorry but the myth of the monster-slayer doesn't work for me along such predictable and repetitious lines.

[Jamie Freveletti]

Steve: Naw--I still don't think you need rabid violence to "reveal" character or create conflict. Violence helps, and if you're writing a thriller or mystery some helps set up the bad guy, but over the top stuff? So the bad guy bounced off the walls. It's kind of like the slasher flicks where "Freddy" goes crazier. It's cool to write, but over and over gets tiresome. The real problem for all of the writers here is that we're in a bit of trouble. Seems like everything that can be done violence-wise, has been, so where do you go from there? Back to pyschological fear.

I'm fascinated by Tess' comment that women tell her that they don't care about the dead men victims. Huh.

[michael gallant]

Jeez, that EAR-ONS information really sent chills down my spine. No kidding about that voice. What is that in the background, his own soundtrack? Holy cow.

[maxine]

Just to say that I and I think a lot of other women would not have answered Tess Gerritsen's poll in the affirmative. I read a lot of crime fiction but I do not like serial killer books. My perception is that the victims in these books are often women (being attacked by a man) but I am sure that one can find every variant under the sun, should one care to look. (I don't care to.)

[Steve Allan]

I haven't written a single word in a couple of months now. Ever since a good friend of mine's daughter was brutally murdered, I've been unable to write about violence. I keep thinking of that murder scene, of the terrible acts that son of a bitch did with a goddamn samurai sword, that sweet girl's discolored face in her coffin, her family forced to bury her in a turtleneck sweater, the hurt and anger. Believe me, you can be re-sensitized to violence.

But I still enjoy violent movies and violent books - the more ridiculously over the top, the better. Why is that? I've never stopped to think about it before, but I've certainly reflected upon it a lot lately. Perhaps it's the sheer artifice of these stories that creates a buffer of some kind. What I do know is that writing it has been extremely hard. Reading or watching are very passive activities, but creating a realistic and believable world of crime and violence requires an immersion that I haven't had the courage for in some time.

[Peter]

I tip my hat to Margaret for citing an example. The failure to do so, even though it may stem from admirable reluctance to criticize an author, is terribly frustrating for those of us reading such debates. Generalities make for weak arguments.

Hats off, too, to Steve Mosby for this statement:

"So why can't an explicitly violent scene be revealing of character, in that it's an extreme form of interaction?"

and to Tess for agreeing with him.

Allan Guthrie, whose name has come up in discussions of (excess) violence, does just that to great effect in "Hard Man."
==============
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com

[Tyra Masters-Heinrichs]

I enjoy good mysteries, and good horror stories - for me they start with character and plot and end with character and plot. A lot of stuff I just don't read or watch. So I agree with Mann, just don't review those works. I go to the library and try to find new authors or my local indie book store and get references. Guess what, i don't buy splatter-porn, gore-pore, or violence-porn, and victim female character is pathetic. A creature I don't want to see myself as - guess that's why I've been buying a lot of cozies and science fiction - I like strong intelligent characters. Also, I like it when the men are the victims or when men and women are victims, but only if it really does 'move the plot forward' and characterizes ... make me gag and I put the book away. And I like having the choice to do so.