My apologies to non-US readers, but the election is eating my brain, so that’s what I’m going to write about here.
The Romance blogosphere rippled recently with discussion of whether authors should reveal their political affiliations on their blogs or, even more controversially, in their books. I’ve certainly occasionally been shocked out of some otherwise wonderful books with what seems to be an untoward political statement (most of which I agreed with, so that wasn’t the reason I was pulled out of the story).
But then, I’ve also read some fabulous books that include obviously political messages that seem perfectly natural. Suzanne Brockmann works that way for me, because I am very much in line with her beliefs. I know people have problems with her writing when they don’t agree with all that she advocates. But then I think that she’s a good enough writer that when her characters go on political mini-rants, they fit the character’s personality and affiliations. Rather, it is the silent way in which she constructs her characters (like Jules Cassidy, her gay FBI agent, most obviously), that her true politics lie.
On the other side of the equation, of course, would be Inspirational fiction. I’ve read Francine Rivers’ Redeeming Love, and while I could appreciate the artistry of the writing, I am personally areligious and very liberal, so the religious message and my perception of the political message did not work for me. While I can objectively say that it was a very well-written book, I cannot say that I enjoyed it or that I would ever read anything else in that sub-genre again. (Which is not to say that I haven’t recommended it to people–I certainly have–it’s just not my political cup of tea.
I know there’s supposedly a list of taboo professions for romance characters, especially the hero. No rock stars, for some reason, although professional sports is becoming more acceptable. No…hmm…the list is getting shorter. No hairdressers or anything else apparently “emasculating” for the hero. The heroine is less confined, it would seem. But the profession that still dare not speak its name is, it seems to me, that of politician. This is probably for the obvious reason that if you name the party affiliation of the character, you’re automatically alienating half of your potential reading audience.
Except recently I’ve skimmed two novels in the bookstore (one Harlequin, one mainstream) in which the hero is a politician. Not that I can remember their titles right now (election eating my brain, remember?), but I know they’re out there. The plot of the mainstream novel revolves around the hero’s party affiliation–he switches from one to another at the end of the novel, and they are named, seriously ticking off his statesman father. It worked for me, but then, he switched the “correct” way for my tastes.
Any thoughts on whether you’d want to read a romance about a politician? Could you handle it if the character identified with the party in opposition to your feelings and beliefs? Any romance you have read that successfully deal with politics? How and why do they work or not?
And finally, for all you Americans: Please vote. I came from a country (South Africa) where four fifths of the population were not allowed to vote when I lived there. Happily, this is no longer the case, and admittedly, I would have been part of the one fifth, but I definitely took away from my time there and the comparison to voting in the US that voting is one of those inalienable rights we should all be able to exercise. So please, don’t let it go to waste. Don’t throw it away because you can’t be bothered. And if you do, don’t whine if you don’t like the result! 
Vote early if you can, vote on the day if you can’t, but please, please, vote.
No related posts.
I’ll read any book if I think it’s a good story.
As for revealing politics, I think it shouldn’t be mentioned or should be kept to a bare minimum. Never discuss politics or religion, because so few can do it without taking things personally and railing insults like bullies on an elementary school playground when the teachers aren’t looking.
Having said that I’ve had little choice this election year because I live in *Alaska.* The day Sarah Palin was nominated as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate I had over 10,000 guests to my personal blog, Star Captains’ Daughter. I still won’t promote either McCain or Obama on my blog, but I do feel a responsibility to Sarah Palin. We have a small town mentality up here, which is both a good thing (mutual support) and a bad thing (family feuds and gossip). So, I keep a picture of Governor Palin on my sidebar offering to answer sincere questions while warning guests that derisive ones will be deleted. I’ve received questions on many different posts about Governor Palin on my blogs and by email. Most guests, whether for or against her, have been polite adults.
What a thought provoking topic! I tend to avoid most fiction that carries political under-tones. When I pick up a book (unless it’s non-fiction) I’m looking to be entertained. The last thing I want to see is an author, intentionally or unintentionally, promote a political agenda. Even brilliant authors can come across as didactic.
Right or wrong, I always question the purpose. If a reader doesn’t share the same affiliation the result is likely alienation not a shift in their viewpoint.
Ultimately, well drawn characters and story lines don’t need to spell out which side of the political fence they stand on. Savvy readers can draw their own conclusions without being hit over the head with it.
Frankly I’m tired of hearing about politics.
I do realize the discussion is important
but it is everywhere,
there’s no escaping it.
And that’s why I read romance,
to escape.
‘Course this is ironic
coming from a business gal.
(Grinning)
The odd thing is that I can remember reading about politicians in contemporaries and series/catorgories for years and years and it never mattered because they were always, say, mayors or city councilpeople. Even state offices. Sometimes even the rare national ones. So, their party affiliation was either ignored completely or fudged, i.e. made into an imaginary category that didn’t raise any alarms either way.
Realistic? Maybe not. On the other hand, it’s more realistic than never attempting to have someone active in their communities politics be a hero or heroine in a romance novel while at the same time being sensitive towards the reading majority.
It’s a balancing act.
Wrt politicians, moreso than their affiliation (I’m open to whatever, because there are many non-political characters in romance who you can assume by their actions/words lean one way or another) are the traits of a politician – stereotypical or not – of being a talker, a schemer, a smile nice and think dirty type of person. Regardless of which way they lean.
If I’m reading a romance about a politician who ‘really just wants to make a difference’, I’ll roll my eyes.
Also, in romance, generally the characters either are excellent in their given careers or have the sort of job where being ‘average’ is acceptable to the reader. With a politician, in reality, you’re going to have an automatic percentage of the population who treats you like the anti-hero/ine and given the reader’s knowledge of politicians, it will be quite unrealistic if someone is drawn as ‘doing great things all the time’ for their state/city/whatever. The fact is they would have promised things during elections that they didn’t – or have yet – to follow up on. Somebody is always going to be angry.
And it’s to find the balance yes, between creating a realistic political character and making them sympathetic.
I don’t really like the political animal.
I have another theory.
Maybe politicians aren’t taboo due to fear of offending readers with the character’s or writer’s politics.
Maybe politicians don’t show up as romance novel heroes and heroines because “politician” has become synonymous with “corruption” in the minds of many. We don’t want a protagonist who’s a sleaze and would scoff at the believability of an honorable politician.
A character struggling between honorable intentions and corrupting influences is always interesting and would remain so in the setting of politics, but it would have to be handled brilliantly by the author, and even then, editors and agents might be hesitant to touch it because that area’s traditionally off limits.
Hmm, I waz gunna comment, but Kerry beat me to it. Tell me when you’re done with the brain, K? I have some writing I can’t seem to get done. I am GLUED to CNN and MSNBC.
Sandra Brown wrote a superb romantic suspense with a politician hero, Mirror Image. I don’t think she said which party he was with, and I didn’t care.
I think Liz Carlysle has a historical with a politician hero, lots of details that went over my head, but I’m pretty sure he was liberal. A Whig?
Jill, I think you can very easily get away with historical politicians, precisely because it’s all giong to go over our heads (reading Eloisa James’ Desperate Duchesses at the moment, with a political character). And I don’t think Whig maps over “liberal” in any way we would define that term today.
And you’re all right about the public impression of politicians, of course. Didn’t think of that.
Jennifer Crusie pulls it off in Welcome to Temptation because Phin is so obviously uninterested in being a politician, because it’s such small town politics, and because Sophie’s going to do it in the future, not in the now of the book. Hmm. Interesting.
Redeeming Love is an interesting case. It originally came out as a standard romance. The hero was religious, but it was only part of the story. Even thought I’m not religious, I found the story compelling. The book was later rewritten to be more overtly religious, and to have something of a political message. I’ve browsed through the new version, and I don’t think I ever would have read the new version – instead of conveying the author’s views in a subtle way, it whomps you over the head with her message. I would imagine that the only people who read books like that are people who already agree with the message.
The same thing seems to be true of political books. I’ve read a few books that seemed to have an agenda, and they usually whomp you over the head with it. Whether I agree with it or not, it doesn’t make for a compelling romance, in my view. And I would imagine, it would only attract those readers who already agree with the message.
Pamela Clare’s Extreme Exposure is an interesting example of overt versus implied politics in romance. The hero’s a senator (state, I think). The heroine’s a journalist. Party politics aren’t an enormous factor in the story. The subtler (non-party) political messages were what aggravated me, primarily because of what they did to the heroine’s development and the story. If the heroine hadn’t got strangely contorted, I’d read another one. But it committed the usual sin:
1. Tell us she’s a dedicated, principled reporter fighting to make a difference while balancing work and life. Cool.
2. Show her as not so much of any of that, but keep telling us it’s all tearing her apart. What?
3. Pull it all together with a whiplash ending that doesn’t resolve a thing. As soon as she hooks a breadwinner, she quits her job (that she’d believed in so ardently). Ahhhh, it all makes sense now.
Well, I put a lot of polemics in mine (and religion to boot) because that’s part of who my characters are.
For me, a libertarian, I have read a lot of romance that has an underlying philosophy that does not align with mine. That’s okay. I take it as part of the characters and do not in any way feel obliged to adopt or even agree with their belief system.
However, for me, a libertarian, I have NEVER read anything that has *my* underlying philosophy and while I don’t resent that, I do have to wonder if other readers are not willing or able to give these philosophies the same leeway I am able to grant to the work I read. I guess we’ll see.
Even in college (well, especially in college), my tolerance for others’ worldview, philosophies, beliefs, and politics was far wider than my fellow students’ tolerance was for mine and I found that terribly at odds with the goal of becoming college educated.
I personally would like to see more current(ish) politics or beliefs in characters in romance, that they believe SOMETHING (I don’t care WHAT) and they aren’t floating through their lives disconnected from the world around them.
Nora Robert’s MacGregor series had a politician or two tucked in there, a president and maybe a senator? I can’t remember exactly, although I do recall that no mention of a party was made, only that the men (yep, it was the heroes, not the heroines) were portrayed as great leaders and motivated by love of family and country. The takeaway was less political and more grounded in what we like to think of here as good, wholesome American values, you know?
I don’t know if I could read a work of fiction that had an obvious partisan message. By this I mean, some books have clear metaphorical or allegorical underpinnings that are clearly ideological in nature (Madeline L’Engel’s “Wrinkle in Time” for example and millions more) and that’s one thing – although I’m not sure I’d want even that in a Romance. To have primary characters that are labeled as Democrat or Republican and meaning that as a shorthand for both their development and the POV of the author, well, meh. It would turn me off.
A lot of contemporaries have secondary characters that are slapped with a party label to provide some kind of conflict. “Oh nos! My daddy is an X and I’m a Y and now he won’t leave me his fortune!” This, while not interfering with my enjoyment of the story, just strikes me as lazy.
Then there are historicals with their Whigs and House of Lords and whatever else. I don’t know enough about past political systems to have these details detract from a story for me. Sadly, I think. It’s a hole in my knowledge and education.
Wow. I’m all over the map here. Sorry ’bout that.
I’m conservative religiously, moderate socially, and an independent voter. I really don’t care if the author makes her politics known in the story, so long as she’s not preachy. I can figure how she feels about homosexuality, or the environment, or what have you–I just don’t want some long soap-boxy monologue, or an outright harangue against other views. In inspirational fiction, I do expect everything to tend to be a little more conservative and for religion to figure very directly, but this, too, can be done without a pulpit. I keep thinking about John Mellencamp–I liked his music better before he started preaching with it (and I agreee with him sometimes).
As far as a rock star hero–that’s fine. I’d be afraid to trust one, though, myself.
Kathryn Shay’s latest series started out with Someone to Believe In, where the hero was a US Senator. In the next book he was the VP. One might take that to mean he is with the party currently in power, or you might not.
While I don’t believe that his party affiliation is ever revealed, Shay does walk a fine line, since the book takes place heavily around a bill in the Senate that the heroine and hero disagree about. Yet somehow, Shay managed to make it about the H/H, not about the politics. Pretty amazing, I thought.
Right now reading about a politician in current times is the last thing I’d want to read…I’m too politicianed out
I agree with Kerry Allen that: “Maybe politicians don’t show up as romance novel heroes and heroines because ‘politician’ has become synonymous with ‘corruption’ in the minds of many. We don’t want a protagonist who’s a sleaze and would scoff at the believability of an honorable politician.” After all, if shows like West Wing were once so popular, why shouldn’t politics play into the romance genre (or any other genre for that matter)? Admittedly, you may turn some readers off by revealing certain political perspectives, but the fiction books that deal with politics I like best are the ones that reveal the nuances of the issue rather than taking one particular stand. Even so, though, in the romance genre I imagine it’s harder to explore those nuances when the plot is supposed to resolve around a love story.
The only romances I’ve read that directly involve politics are Emily Eden’s THE SEMI-DETACHED COUPLE (1860) and Joan Smith’s SWEET AND TWENTY. Both deal with British elections taking place before the passage of the Reform Act.
Most of the others I can recall were romantic suspense and did not deal with presidential politics. Jayne Ann Krentz’s FLASH has a heroine who does event planning and whose brother works for a gubernatorial candidate who turns out to be a crook; she’s doing a campaign rally. In THE GOLDEN CHANCE, the hero’s brother is running for governor or senator; he’s conservative but no party’s named. The heroine, a burned-out social worker, allies with the candidate’s wife to get him to be progressive on issues involving children.
SMOKE AND MIRRORS by Barbara Michaels (aka Elizabeth Peters) is a romantic suspense novel set in a senatorial campaign. The young heroine knows nothing about politics when she’s hired by a senator who was her mother’s girlhood friend; but her office skills are much needed. She gets a comprehensive education in politics from the hero and various other characters in the campaign brain trust.
Our election is on down here at the moment, and it is not as exciting with not nearly as much comedy clips on youtube either!
As for rocks stars in novels, I kinda like them and wish there were a few more.
I was thinking of the West Wing, too, Nancy, and also The American President, both by the same writer. In both cases politics are important, but they’re really character-led stories, and I guess that would be key for me in reading a book that dealt with politicians. Mostly, if I were looking for escape, I wouldn’t be tempted to pick up a contemporary book about politicians, for fear that if the political beliefs were really far off mine, I wouldn’t enjoy it unless the author were really skillful.
It’s not straight romance, more women’s fiction, but Marian Keyes’s This Charming Man has a politician anti-hero, and an important secondary female politician, and it’s brilliant. She changed the names of the Irish political parties, though, and she focuses more on gender in politics rather than the politics themselves. Or that’s what I got out of it, anyway.
As to rock stars…the hero of my last release was a rock star. An alcoholic, too. Bring it on!
I’ve really enjoyed some of the novel length romance fanfics written about characters from The West Wing, as well as the on screen relationships. There’s an added appeal to the idea that the h/h are striving to accomplish things they believe in within a system that tends toward hidebound bureaucracy and corruption in addition to being physically/intellectually attracted to each other.
There was something so very sexy about Josh and Donna talking politics. Or Jed and Abby. Or CJ and her current beau. Heady mixture of practical idealism, intelligence that’s both impressive and playful, and physical desire.
That said, the progressiveness of the politics of the characters was a big part of my enjoyment. I don’t think I could be as happy for a couple that’s striving bravely to get sex education kicked out of schools as I could for Josh and Donna arguing over the Mexico bailout in that one ep.
I think it depends on how it’s written. I’ve read books in which I feel the author is trying to shove down my throat their own religious and political ideas, or other ideas on controversial issues (abortion, homosexualism, ect.). In other words, the story feels more like the author’s justification to preach his/her ideas.
On the other hand, there are novels in which characters touch some pretty controversial topics, but they just reflect who they are. For instance, I couldn’t help that one of my characters political beliefs was totally opposite of my own. And although I disagreed with my character, I realized that it was all part of what made character be who he was.
For contemporary romances, I enjoy when they dovetail with what’s happening in the world so I’d enjoy more political romances right now.
Faith and politics are not necessarily interwined, although I know it seems that way in America.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed Redeeming Love because I am religious, I didn’t see that as a political book. (It was definitely a strong evangelical message.) There are definitely some inspirationals that are overtly political. But there are many more that aren’t political at all. So maybe you’ll give that sub-genre another try someday, with a less overtly evangelical and non-political book. You may actually enjoy it.
If I knew the author’s reputation (and she was a favorite of mine), I’d probably pick up a book featuring a politician as the hero. If I didn’t know the author, I probably wouldn’t, but only because politicians aren’t sexy to me and that’s why I read romance. A politician just doesn’t do it for me
Btw, I mailed in my absentee ballot yesterday!
I prefer that politics be kept private and not just by writers. In a way, I think of politics as a cheap thing and to drag it into books is exhausting. I think it’s certainly possible to tell a strong story that reflects one’s values without being overtly political. It seems to me that politics divide and do nothing to unite so let’s keep politics in the political arena.
This was a fascinating column. Thanks so much for writing it, because it is something I’ve been wondering about with my own blog.
My immediate thought of a great political romance was of the romantic comedy, The American President. Michael Douglas was a great hero in that movie and it actually has some serious things to say about politics.
I also thought of the movie Dave, which is primarily political but has a romance subplot. Both heroes are about decent men in tough situations facing corruption/lies. I think that scenario works well for a romance.
It’s much easier to be political in historical, science fiction, or fantasy romance. Authors can get their viewpoint across without beating someone over the head with it and the politics are less immediate and personal.
One last great movie I’ve got to mention. It was on the BBC (and A&E) a few years ago. It is NOT a romance, more like women’s fiction. It was called “The Politician’s Wife” about a wife whose MP husband was outted for having an affair with a woman. The wife seems to be all supportive of her husband, but delivers a stunning and cunning coup de gras. It was a wonderful movie, and I highly recommend it if you like personal intrigue and revenge stories.
Having strict definitions abut what a hero can do for a living limits romance. I’d be open to practically anything. Life is complex and I find it fascinating when I read about a job I knew nothing about beore.
I guess the basic problem is that most counties expect their leaders to be “settled” and thus “married”. So the romance has occurred. Unless of course the leader’s wife (and I’m not even going to touch the idea of a gay leader) dies.
Traditionally sex and politics are uncomfortable bedmates.
So now we’ve identified a publishing gap…
BTW yesterday on the news it was reported that Australians 4:1 would vote for Barack Obama. Incompetent was the most often word used in association with the current US leadership.
I echo Lori about Kathryn Shay’s SOMEONE TO BELIEVE IN. I had no doubt that the heroine was Liberal Democrat & the hero was Conservative Republican (lst a D.A., then, a Senator), but, it was fascinating how Shay kept the story on the volitile, romantic relationship between the h/h, not just how politics worked (though there was some of that). Shay did a great job of showing the business of politics, but, keeping the relationship front & center.
This is one of my all-time fave Romances, & I loved these 2 characters.