My morning routine…

My morning routine is to get up and turn on the tv. Then I rotate through all the news stations until something catches my eye. Recently I saw a story on MSNBC about a New York book narrator, Kimberly Wetherell who started a series on TikTok called Literary Man Shaming. She reads excerpts of books written by men highlighting the sexist and condescending way men write about women and their bodies. After starting the series in February, she says she has been inundated with suggestions to add to the collection. An example of what she has found is from Bill Bryson’s The Lost Continent— “it’s a strange thing-the teenaged daughters of these fat women are always utterly delectable, as soft and gloriously rounded and fresh smelling as a basket of fruit.” Having just published a novel I am sensitive to how my book is perceived. I would wager Bryson did not see anything wrong in the passage above when he wrote it. In fact, I bet he thought it was cleverly perceptive of him to make the observation. In More Than A Man Can Stand, I had to make a choice as to how explicit to describe the events at the Jersey Shore when Lillana’s breast is exposed by a wardrobe malfunction resulting from the crashing surf. And later, the choice was whether Redfern would have relations with any of the native women. My choice was to dodge the subject. I wanted to keep the subject matter kid friendly, so I avoided it. What do you think?