Yes, it does bother me that all the best novel Edgar nominees are male. And it bothers me that in the best first category, four of the five nominees are male.

NO, I do not believe it to be conspiracy or even deliberate. But I do believe something is going on when in the space of 3 years, two bunches of book jurors can’t find it in themselves to nominate a book by a female mystery (or thriller author) to be one of the five best. I do not believe I was conscious. I believe much of it has to do with what we think of books. I mean, we’ve long heard complaints, have we not, of the lighter side of mystery never seeing nominations. Isn’t that one reason (I’m asking NOT telling, I don’t really remember) that tom and Enid wanted the Lefty? Because funny didn’t get nominated? And haven’t you heard the comments that cozy doesn’t get nominated? I know I have.

Do I agree? I dunno. I do know that I have big issues with juried awards. They are considered more prestigious than flat out voted on awards. The Edgar has 10 times the oomoh that the Anthony does because only readers vote for the Anthonys whereas the Edgar is a “peer award.” And I’m sick of defending reader awards as more broad based because no matter what I say someone claims they are “popularity contests’ without ever defining that or citing an explanation.

But so fucking what? That’s not the point either. As I’ve noted before, a jury here is what, five people? I can imagine sitting in a room with a4 other of my closest friends – 4 of YOU reading this blog who read mysteries and not agreeing on the five best that we read. Never mind 4 relative strangers? It’s not always simply, is it? I’ve noted previously that I believe that the jurors do their damndest to nominate the BEST but their ideas of “best” might be so different that they have to compromise in order to get the list going.

I just went and looked at DL for some ideas. The catch is that people list the best books they read in 2007, some of which were written 20, 30, 5, 50 years ago, so it’s hard to find a group, but here are a couple examples.

One person listed one two books from 2007

Donna Andrews’ The Penguin Who Knew Too Much
And Jane Cleland’s Deadly Appraisal

Here’s another, deleting all the none 2007 pub dates

Bowen Rhys Her Royal Spyness
Casey Donis The Drop Edge of Yonder
Cohen Jeffrey Some Like It Hot-Buttered
> Perry Anne We Shall Not Sleep
> Sternberg Libby The Case Against My Brother

Here’s a 3d

Roberts Gillian Alls Well That Ends
Fairstein Linda Bad Blood
Crider Bill Murder Among the Owls
Crombie Deborah Water Like A Stone
Rozan S.J. In the Rain
(except it’s NOT 2007, it was released in late Dec. 2006)
DeCastrique Mark Final Undertaking
Lippman Laura What The Dead Know
Bowen Rhys In Dublin's Fair City
Dunnett Kaitlyn Kilt Dead
Maron Margaret Hard Row
Fowler Earlene Tumbling Blocks
Delaney Kathleen And Murder For Dessert
Francis Dick & Felix Dead Heat
Baxter Cynthia Whose Kitten Who
Kandel Randy(ed) Murder New York Style

A fourth

Lee Child Bad Luck and Trouble
Reginald Hill Death Comes for the Fat Man
Peter Robinson Friend of the Devil
Chelsea Cain Heartsick
Minette Walters The Chameleon's Shadow
Sue Grafton T is for Trespass

Okay, we’re unscientific as hell here, and we’re not writers (mostly) on DL but librarians, readers, fans. Mostly. Except that more and more writers are there. But these are hardly the stuff of which the Edgars were made. Note that many are “cozy” but that Lee Child is also in the mix, as is Peter Robinson, Minette Walters, that Chealsea Cain book that so grossed me out, Linda Fairstein.

But the Edgar nominees aren’t here.

Now I’m NOT trying to make a point that DL can’t choose Edgar nominees. I’ve listed these lists to show how broad range taste is. My “best of 2007” list – all three books was

WHAT THE DEAD KNOW, Laura Lippman
DEADMAN’S SWITCH, Barbara Seranella
HEART-SHAPED BOX, Joe Hill.

That was IT.

Of the Edgar best novel nominees, I read one and would not have nominated it (the Chabon. I thought it was interesting but such a mess) and tried one other. I can’t read the wonderful Ken Bruen – I’ve tried him so I didn’t even try his, and never heard of the other 2. Yeah, it wasn’t a good year for me but I still thought I was keeping up with titles, releases, review books. (I probably woulda read one if I’d gotten it, seen it, since I’ve read several others by that author.)

Best first? I tried 2 or 3, got nowhere. Last night, I took one up again and I will not be able to finish it. I don’t LIKE IT. I don’t LIKE testosterone adventure novels. I don’t LIKE boy’s night out macho capers. I don’t. I just don’t. And that’s what this book is to me. I don’t know if it’s a good example of its sort. I don’t like it and don’t think it should be up there with the best of the year. There’s not exactly a lot of mystery in it. It does have a unique voice and iwill argue for that, but it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like men’s world books. If that phrase is confusing, I can’t be too clear except to say that I don’t spent a lot of time reading books where women are unimportant or non-existent except to bed the hero, whether the book was written in the 40s or last month. I am already tired of what I see as a red of hard-drinking, swaggering guys. There’s a lot of “noir” out there. I don’t like it because it’s not stylish, which noir originally was. It involves lots of violence, guns, whisky and swearing. And it’s very tiresome and uninteresting to me.

Maybe my time in the genre is over. Maybe what I have found in mystery has gone by as it did in sf. When I began reading sf, it was because WOMEN were in the mix. I didn’t read the genre as a kid, but when the field became far more women-friendly with female protagonists and writers, I found a home. That later extended to mystery, with the whatever you want to call the new age that began pretty much with Muller. And I’m not saying they’re gone, in either genre. But in sf, and mystery, trends happen. Cyberpunk as well as steampunk in sf. Now there’s stuff called “slipstream” and it already tires me to hear sf being redefined for the 836th time because people don’t want to be thought of as writing about rocket ships and robots. Pooey. If Ursula Le Guin can write science fiction and fantasy without cringing, it’s okay by me to call it science fiction and fantasy.

And the new noir boys don‘t want anyone to think they even ever cracked the cover of GAUDY NIGHT or whatever. They’re tough. They’re MEN. They know about drugs and violence, guns and ammo. Ungawa. Sorry, I am a tad cranky, aren’t i?

I know that’s unfair but it has been happening. And maybe that influences what folks see as “the best’. I dunno. I just feel farther and farther away from it all.

And I can’t even discuss it without attack. I do believe that when we end up with the best being all of one gender, when this is supposed to be representative of the field at large, then it’s worthy of discussion. And NO, I don’t think that just because most Agatha nominees are women that this makes the discussion moot. By and large, yes, women write cozies/traditionals. NO not all but that’s pretty common ground. BY AND LARGE, it USED to be that men wrote thrillers, but that has been changing. However, when the first ITW award nominees were all male, I said the same thing. We should look at this. And was seen as the fucking DEVIL because I was accusing people of sexism and nothing could be farther blah blah blah. In fact, I was NOT. I at least do not believe that any nominating judge believes that women are lesser writers. Consciously. But isn’t this worth I dunno discussing? Don’t the studies say that mystery readers are in the majority FEMALE? Don’t we know that women get published in large numbers now? This IS 2008. It’s not 1973. Don’t we expect to see some women’s names, or is that a non-issue? If it is a non-issue, why? Is this just a fluke? I have trouble thinking that when it’s happened twice in like 2 years.

I don’ t know who the judges were, and it doesn’t matter. I believe they did the best of a hard job. I do believe that it is possible that some of their fave books did NOT MAKE THE FUCKING CUT because Judge A who adores funny mysteries would not agree with Judge B who loves thrillers who can’t agree with judge C who likes traditional private eye stuff unlike Judge D who likes historicals. Now of course it’s not like that – we all have a mix of tastes. But right now, right here, do you agree with MY best of list? Course not. And you might be inclined to have taste a BIT like mine because it’s likely we met in part over books. It’s just WEIRD that we can’t get past this. The second I raised the issue on a blog I got sideswiped by someone yelling at me and insisting that of course the books were simply the BEST of the year. No, they were the best that 5 people COULD AGREE ON. Leaving out the Lippman, which is on a lot OF DAMN LISTS and should be. That’s not loyalty to a friend, that’s commenting on a stand-out novel that made me think, brought me to new places, surprised me and gave me pleasure at how well it was all done. That’s a good book, dammit. And I’m not the only person on the planet who thinks so in the case of this book.

So how do we discuss this? We don’t, do we? Nothing happened after the ITW thing. NOTHING. Some folks over-reacted, speeches were made, some blog posts tried to analyze, some jerkwads posted things like “why are you’ complaining at the lack fo Asian authors being nominated?” a comment that so infuriates me because it is deliberate sidestepping of the issue at hand and it demeans the discussion. And god help me I said so and told the poster to “shut up” which I tend not to do but jesus. It’s so insulting that when you try to mention sexism, all you get is defensive shit in your face and mockery. WHY IS THAT? Why can’t we talk about this inn a way that we might gain some insight?

I’m beginning to think my days in this community are indeed numbered. My lack of interest over the last year since LCC ended, my fed-upedness at DL, my amazement over these nominations, my inertia when it came to trying to get to Bouchercon, might be symptomatic that it’s not my community any more. I can’t be sure. But I sure hate that something has gone out the window in recent months. Between DL and some of this discussion, it sure doesn’t feel like Kansas any more Toto.