Almost a decade ago, when I first wrote about urban fiction — which has titles such as “Girls from da Hood” and “Thugs and the Women Who Love Them” — I must admit that I hoped the genre would be short-lived.
Back then, I told the story of a local librarian whose branch was checking the books out at unprecedented rates. Because urban fiction is often quite blue and chock-full of stereotypes, he wondered whether he should be happy that patrons, many of them teens, were devouring books, or concerned that what they were reading amounted to empty calories.
I don’t like empty calories.
Several booksellers I spoke to recently told me that urban fiction, also known as street lit or even gangsta lit depending on how lurid the book is, isn’t just still around but thriving. And it’s doing so in a publishing environment still struggling to find its footing.
How hot is the genre? Matthew Kohnhorst, the manager at Barbara’s Bookstore in Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said it’s hard to say exactly because a lot of these authors are now e-publishing or self-publishing. Stores have contracts with book distributors that restrict how many self-published books a store can carry.
“But there are superstar authors such as Zane,” said Kohnhorst. A writer of erotica, “she was one of the first people to write in the genre, and now has a publishing imprint that’s become an empire. Ashley and JaQuavis Coleman initially sold books from the trunk of their car and eventually was picked up by mainstream publishers.”
Kohnhorst’s store caters to nurses and other devotees who visit author websites, or clip magazine articles and know what titles are coming out before bookstore staffers do.
Javier Ramirez, store manager at The Book Table in Oak Park, said the books are so popular there that you won’t find them on the bookshelf because customers were shoplifting them.
Instead there’s a magazine rack that hangs on the wall in the fiction section and includes an alphabetized catalog with the store’s urban fiction titles. A note tells customers to ask for the books, which are tucked away behind the counter.
“When people ask why we keep them there and why they’re not with the regular fiction, we explain it’s because of theft,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez said author E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey” is behind the counter as well.
“But some of the stuff in (urban fiction) would make E. L. James blush,” he said.
It makes others whisper. When I mentioned I was writing this to a colleague, she revealed that she reads books in the genre — but she revealed it sheepishly.
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That’s because for people who also read headier books, they know these stories are missing the lyricism or nuance that authors Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks or even Sister Souljah achieved in depicting the black urban experience. (It’s one I tried to lay out in my own first novel.)
Where urban fiction excels is in its compelling portrayals of modern characters dealing with prison, drugs, violence and sexuality in ways that validate a segment of the black experience that hadn’t existed much in print. Some of the most popular books are also serials with cliffhangers that keep readers returning for more.
“Every book I read isn’t a great literary feast,” said Kohnhorst. “It’s like my grandmother who would read her Danielle Steel paperbacks, but keep Sinclair Lewis displayed prominently on her bookshelves.”
But this isn’t just about books that are highbrow versus those that are guilty pleasures. Constance Shabazz, who owns Books Ink in the Beverly neighborhood, told me that the stakes are much higher when it comes to capturing black urban life.
She’s absolutely right.
“We’re quite aware of the situation we’re in,” said Shabazz. “Black people are yearning for ways to get out of this situation.”
She said she had a similar concern about the Blaxploitation movies of the 1970s.
“For us, it’s more than entertainment,” Shabazz said. “It’s not enough to see ourselves on the screen or in books as stereotypes. We need to use every vehicle possible to lift ourselves out of this condition.”
She said the other major problem she has with urban fiction is that the books tend to be poorly written and edited. She was so frustrated by this that Books Ink now offers literary services and workshops for authors who want to learn the craft, whether they wind up self-publishing or seeking a traditional or smaller, independent publisher.
“Most of these books are written by young African-Americans who feel good that they’re doing something positive, but we have to develop and elevate the work,” Shabazz said.
One of my biggest concerns is that we’re missing a lot of excellent writers who have different voices and different stories to tell. I recall when in the early 1990s authors Alice Walker, Toni Morrison and Terry McMillan were on The New York Times best-seller list together, and publishers realized that black folks were an untapped market of readers.
The beauty of that moment was that these were well-trained storytellers who told complex, panoramic tales about the black experience that reached crossover audiences.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s certainly room for books that mostly titillate and excite. But Shabazz summed up my feelings well as she spoke about the power of books.
“They shouldn’t just leave you where you are,” she said. “It’s important that they add a dimension to where you want to be.”