The reason most indie novels are written like the author is terrified of doing something wrong is because the overwhelming majority of indie novelists get their start by networking in the violent panopticon of the social media indie publishing community, which favours the people who are able to win at the social policing game.
Okay so this comment got me googling because I hadn't heard of Isabel Fall
And if you also hadn't heard of her go read this because uhh... Holy Shit
I had heard of the whole messed up situation with this story, but I hadn't ever read the synopsis of the story before, and WOW
This story sounds like it could have been a brilliant exploration of gender and warfare and violence but instead it was attacked by people who didn't know how to confront a story that made them uncomfortable, and the author faced horrible consequences.
It's so important to be able to deal with stories that give you uncomfortable feelings in other ways than just attacking it. Being shown new perspectives sometimes has feelings of discomfort because it's an unfamiliar way of seeing the world.
You can read it Here
...
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
For the love of God, please read this story. It is so fucking good in ways that I can't even begin to articulate.
Isabel Fall alluded to Nazi concepts in an edgy ambiguous Nazisploitation aesthetic that, if you read it in good faith, you could tell was ultimately in subversion of those concepts. However, the general sentiment of edgy South Parkian ambiguity caused the hypersensitive leftist critics to read her as a Nazi as a baseline assumption. It's the same phenomenon as The Boys viewers reading the (very Jewish) show as Nazi because of the presence of a likable Nazi character. Any attempt to put the brakes on it has everyone scrutinizing you as a Nazi, so the most extreme voices intimidate the rest into staying quiet.
When the detail that the writer was a trans woman (and a specific one people knew) had filtered into common knowledge, the consensus of the vocal detractors was that she had done Nazi actions equivalent to being a Nazi that hurt every trans woman, and it was their responsibility to terrorize her. When she ended up suicidal and swore off writing, that was viewed as a great victory against an enemy of trans women. (Not dissimilar from people harassing Jewish actress Aya Cash for portraying a Nazi on The Boys.)
Also, people like to single out N.K. Jemisin for participating, but she was pretty much doing what people expect of an ally: following the leading voices of the relevant minority, repeating their messages, and using her social capital to boost theirs. The problem was the trans women leading the mob. I find the presence of trans woman author Alexandra Erin more objectionable because she was run off Tumblr for being into vore and bondage and because she liked a post from a black submissive woman showing off a collar, which was framed as her wanting to enslave black people, so you would think she'd be sympathetic to a trans woman author stigmatized for being into edgy humor. Instead, she likened the story to firing randomly in the air and hoping only bad people would be hurt, when it should be clear innocents would likely be hurt, making the whole endeavor harmful. (Like being open about liking controversial fetishes on Tumblr?)
Edgy humor sets off mainstream leftists like Daleks sighting an enemy.
And there is some reason to say NK Jemisin was doing what people expect from an ally, but if this was the result, maybe it’s time we actually think about that a little.
Like, how many times can we see a marginalized creator get torn to bloody shreds by other marginalized people and well intended “Allies” who never actually looked at the evidence themselves and just went off what “the affected group” was saying? The queer experience is subjective as hell, and I can’t imagine any other marginalized experience is different. Maybe we should stop mob harassing people for making something without looking at the thing ourselves.
And it’s fine if you don’t want to look at a thing, but at this point I think we need to bring back the old rule that if you haven’t seen/read something, you ought to just not talk about it at all and admit you don’t know anything about the subject. Because here's the other thing? The people who did this to Ms. Fall? Entirely other progs/lefties/libs. Not a single conservative was involved. It was all lefties attacking our own. You will never see this happen to a more 'conservative' or even 'apolitical' (read: written by a white man from a white man's perspective) indie novel, because those perspectives aren't hounded like a transfem's are. They aren't expected to be perfect the way a transfem's are. By engaging in harassment campaigns like this, you are purely and totally making it harder for marginalized people to publish, because at the end of the day, they are the ones who lose their social support networks to harassment campaigns by the terminally online, while the mediocre white dude can just fucking ignore anything the twitter mob says.
I think it's important to point out that, if I am reading the interview she gave not long after it all went down correctly, not only did she get harassed until she gave up writing, she fucking went back in the closet.
Because there was little biographical information available about its author, the debate hinged on one question: Who was Isabel Fall? And that question ate her alive. When she emerged from the hospital a few weeks later, the world had moved on, but she was still scarred by what had happened. She decided on something drastic: She would no longer be Isabel Fall. As a trans woman early in transition, Fall had the option of retreating to the relative safety of her legal, masculine identity. That’s what she did, staying out of the limelight and growing ever more frustrated by what had happened to her. She bristles when I ask her in an email if she’s stopped transitioning, but it’s the only phrase I can think of to describe how the situation appears. Isabel Fall was on a path to becoming herself, and then she wasn’t — and all because she published a short story. And then her life fell apart.
...
After she checked out of the hospital, Isabel Fall ceased to be Isabel Fall. “I had a few other stories in the works on similar themes, and I withdrew them; that is the most concrete thing I can say that I stopped doing,” Fall says. “More abstractly, more emotionally, I have stopped trying to believe I am a woman or to work towards womanness. If other people want to put markings on my gender-sphere and decide what I am, fine, let them. It’s not worth fighting.”
That makes me so fucking angry every time I think about it that I want to spit or cry.
I have not been the subject of the level of intense, sudden, overwhelming attention that she has; I have been the target of a lower-volume, sustained campaign, and there is a reason that I call it "the acid fire hose." That shit will strip the fucking flesh from your bones.
So yeah. Of course indie authors flinch.
Honestly, there are plenty of books by indie authors, especially trans authors, that I've wanted to say, "I liked this mostly, but I really didn't care for [aspect]," but I was so concerned that I would cause problems that I fully just... didn't talk about the book at all bc I couldn't honestly just be like YUP I LIKED IT ALL.
