Mislabeled as a Memoirist, Author Asks: Whose Work Gets to Be Journalism? | Hacker News Reader

Mislabeled as a Memoirist, Author Asks: Whose Work Gets to Be Journalism?

npr.org

77 pointssamclemens24 comments

If I understand correctly, the book was marketed as a memoir at the insistence of the publisher ... because sexism and racism?

The tense relationship between authors and publishers is as old as books. Publishers want to move lots of units. Authors want to realize their vision. Sometimes the two go hand in hand, and sometimes not. Pretty common in every creative industry.

I don't want to trivialize and dismiss the author's experience but she has no qualms doing the same to her fellow (white, male) authors, who apparently have it so easy attaining credibility and earning a living practicing their craft.

I listened to her talk at Google on YouTube, which had a journalistic tone and was quite interesting. The part where she manages to show the kids Harry Potter over the objections of the censors and the evangelicals who want to show Narnia is amusing. If you look at the reviews of the book on GoodReads though, you get the idea that she spends a lot of it writing about how much she misses her boyfriend in NYC and other aspects of her personal experience not related to the subject. If it was to be a treated as journalism, those aspects would likely have been edited out, and probably not added in the first place. So, she did write something that was partially a memoir. Journalism is a bit more of a purist category, so memoir seems like the right choice for this book as it stands, however, it might have been better received if it were written as purely journalism.

If her publisher felt that what she wrote was veering too much into memoir territory, perhaps asking her editor to excise those segments would have been a better option than recategorizing it.

Why?

There's nothing wrong with an investigative journalism-memoir hybrid. The only reason to remove the memoir-ish aspects of her books is because some don't find the genre respectable or prestigious regardless of a book's merit.

>The only reason to remove the memoir-ish aspects of her books is because some don't find the genre respectable or prestigious regardless of a book's merit.

Truth be told, I didn't realize a memoir was something not respectable.

If her publisher thinks memoirs are more profitable, why on earth would they ask her to remove the memoir bits?

You're adding complexity to a situation that doesn't need it, and masking some serious social problems here with what can only be described as FUD. There is no way a man going undercover in North Korea would ever get his work labeled as a memoir.

Perhaps its a sad fact that the work of women sells more copies when sold as a memoir and the publisher is make a shrewd decision. Perhaps its possible that the publisher is just can't conceive of women in a contemporary way.

Whatever the case, the situation is FUBAR. This is a journalistic work and it should be presented as such because that is that only way to publish it with integrity. Everyone at that publisher should be ashamed of what they've done.

viz Black Like Me

If this theory is true, one needs to take it up with women: In my country they are the majority of book buyers and yes, many of them would probably respond to the memoir angle.

Men would not.

The publisher is still at fault. Lying does not become okay when it gets you money.

I was responding to:

"Perhaps its possible that the publisher is just can't conceive of women in a contemporary way."

The point is that apparently the female buyers cannot "conceive of women in a contemporary way".

>You're adding complexity to a situation that doesn't need it, and masking some serious social problems here with what can only be described as FUD

I disagree on both counts. Maybe there isn't a serious social problem here - how do you know?

>Perhaps its a sad fact that the work of women sells more copies when sold as a memoir and the publisher is make a shrewd decision. Perhaps its possible that the publisher is just can't conceive of women in a contemporary way.

This is pure speculation, masquerading as insight. How do you know that your interpretation of this situation is actually correct?

> This is a journalistic work and it should be presented as such because that is that only way to publish it with integrity.

Ok. I have no opinion on the work in question. However, when you take money, you lose flexibility. It wouldn't be the first time that pressure from the publisher compromised the author's vision.

> "The tense relationship between authors and publishers is as old as books."

This logic masks any real problem within a "well, the larger problem has always existed".

Police brutality? "Well, conflicts between citizens and the police have always existed."

Etc. etc.

I don't think parent commenter was saying it's not a problem, just that it's a pretty universal problem.

The specific social forces at work in creating this author's particular problem are not at all universal, just as the disproportionate use of force by American police against black Americans is not just the universal problem of police brutality, but a specific circumstance in which that problem is made more extreme. Pretending otherwise is morally and factually wrong.

This is spot on.

Oh, I agree with you far more than the original comment, I was just trying to clarify because I thought it was an interesting point.

>The specific social forces at work in creating this author's particular problem are not at all universal

How do you know? Police brutality and disproportionate harassment of black Americans is a well-studied phenomenon. It has also been in the public consciousness, has been the topic of presidential speeches and debates, and was covered extensively by social media and mainstream press. On the other hand, this is the first I hear of some sort of bias against Korean-American women authors writing investigative books. I didn't even know that memoirs are not respectable.

>This logic masks any real problem within a "well, the larger problem has always existed"

Or not. How do you tell the difference?

Imagine spending 10 years working on a product and then being told at the last minute that it was going to be marketed in a completely different way than you expected. Like you think you're making an intelligent puzzler for adult gamers, and then they wrap it in a cartoonish package and call it "Wally's Wicked World of Puzzles!"

I'm glad she's decided to speak up about this issue and I absolutely agree that the chances a white man would get similar treatment is close to nill.

And for those who think these kinds of racial thought experiments don't hold water, they can and do. Consider the fact that Academy Award winning actor Forest Whitaker was once patted down in the middle of an upscale deli because an employee thought he might be shoplifting. Now consider whether that would ever happen to a white actor of a similar pedigree and try to argue that racism was not at work.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/19/forest-whitaker-fal...

Happens all the time to game makers, screenplay writers, songwriters, pretty much any type of auteur or IP creator. Retaining full creative control over the product is very rare and requires control of production and distribution.

This control varies by the medium. A painter can do it easily (sometimes), many other artists cannot.

Moreover, "marketing" can never be controlled. A critic with a platform can say whatever she wants about your work and you can't stop her.

One of the top reviewer comments on Amazon from 2014 before the kertuffle. If this is the case, she's written something which is more like a memoir than investigative journalism and her work was not mislabeled:

"The first is Kim herself. The first 30% of the book is heavily autobiographical, for no apparent reason. She "loves" her students before even two weeks have passed, which devalues the unnamed "lover" in New York she refers to consistently but rather pointlessly. She has passages of overly flowery language that seem to have been taken from a novel not written; strangely, but thankfully, they disappear by the 2nd half of the book.

Those sections would have been better served by giving us information on things like how many students were at the school, and how many teachers there were, and whether this was meant to replace a normal college education or merely supplement it. She frequently mentions that things are "forbidden", but never conveys how this information is conveyed to the teachers. Various things are "approved", but again there is no description of how this happens. Are written submissions made? Do teachers ask their minders face to face? Does the (foreign) college president play any role in the decisions?"

And another:

"This book is divided into two parts. In the first part of the book we are taken on a small journey as you learn about the life of the author. I was moved to think what culture shock she must have experienced when she explains having to move to the United States during her early teenage years and having to adapt to a new language and society. I love how Kim uses these experiences in order to relate them to the subject of the book which in turn would be her stay as a teacher at the PUST School in North Korea. The first half of the book speaks concerning her first visit years before to North Korea and the impact it had on her life."

Journalism should never be autobiographical. I haven't read the book, and I probably should because it sounds extremely interesting, but from this it certainly doesn't sound like it should be defined as journalism. Suki Kim needs to pick her battles...

What is the difference between gonzo journalism and memoir? Neither aspires to objectivity without personal context.

P.S.: You're right, I know nothing of literature, that's why my thesis is a question.

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