by
Steve Lazarowitz
June 2000
THE MAINSTREAM MYTH
I'd like to introduce you to Larry Bailey...not the man, but his work. Larry doesn't write science fiction or fantasy. He doesn't write mystery or horror. He doesn't write romance or adventure either. But he does write fiction. Compelling, awe-inspiring fiction. He is, in my opinion, a literary force to be reckoned with.
Yet Larry, who has one book e-published thus far (and two more coming), not to mention a couple of hard covers published by Xlibris, has trouble advertising his books, because they don't fit into any genre. They are, in his own words, contemporary western adventures. In my words, they are studies of life and are every bit as good as any book you'll find in any bookstore in the world.
Larry Bailey is suffering from the mainstream myth. By pigeonholing what we will and won't read, we are, to a large degree, sidestepping a huge potential for both entertainment and growth.
Not only that, but mainstream has no real meaning. What exactly is mainstream?
For years, larger mystery writers and horror writers and even a few science fiction writers, have denied their roots. They know that if their book ends up in one of the genre sections, it has far less chance to sell. My favorite example of this is Jurassic Park.
Jurassic Park is clearly science fiction. Even Michael Crichton will tell you that. But you'll never find it in a science fiction section. It's considered mainstream. So is the Robert Ludlum's book The Matlock Papers. If it was a movie, you'd call it a spy thriller.
In fact, try this. Walk into a video store and try to find the mainstream section. There is none. There's drama, action/adventure, science fiction and fantasy (I loathe when they lump horror into that same section, which many places do), comedy...but no mainstream.
As soon as I realized that, it came to me. Mainstream is a contrivance to keep genre authors away from the public at large. There we are, huddled into our little separate sections at bookstores, shunned by the masses. Then again, the masses in general are never really exposed to "good" science fiction and fantasy.
I've written quite a few articles about it. Science Fiction as Literature, The Other Science Fiction, The Many Faces of Fantasy and yet in the end, it matters not a whit. The public is too prejudiced against science fiction for anything I say to matter.
This is one of the most interesting things about Crossroads Publishing. If you've never been there, you might consider stopping by. The URL is www.crossroadspub.com . They are currently my e-publisher of choice. They've published Dream Sequence (my anthology) and will be publishing The Adventures of Alaric Swifthand. However, they do not organize their site into genres. They have a children's, young adult and adult section. That's it. Which means that Larry Bailey's Wake of the Whale and my speculative fiction anthology Dream Sequence, as different as they are, are located in the same section.
Admittedly, if Wake of the Whale had been in a bookstore, I'd have probably bypassed it, and made my way to the science fiction section. I'm glad I didn't.
While this is not a full review, I can say that Mr. Bailey's writing is exceptional and his protagonist's voice is near perfect. Mr. Bailey does with his book, the same thing that a good SF book is supposed to do. He makes me think. And that's all I really require of a book.
Do you know what I think? I think everyone should try at least one e-book. Maybe more, but at least one. Naturally, I wouldn't mind if you try one of mine, but really, what you might try is just one book out of your genre. Something you normally wouldn't read, that looks interesting.
The downloads are somewhat cheaper than buying a paperback, so it shouldn't hurt too much to give it a try.
At worst, you'll have wasted four bucks. At best, you'll have opened your mind in a direction you've never considered. That has to be worth risking four bucks.
In the end, we are what we experience. So why are we all so anxious to limit our experiences?
I've made myself a promise that I'm going to start reading more "mainstream" books. Not Danielle Steel. I mean literary works by modern authors. I'm sure, if nothing else, the exposure will make me a better writer.
And if you are a reader, if you love the way that words sound when put together, if the craft of writing makes an impression on your soul, then seriously consider picking up Larry Bailey's Wake of the Whale from Crossroads Publications.
I end this months column with just a brief excerpt from that book, the very beginning of the prologue. To me, this is everything writing should be.
***
They call me Lucky. A while ago, in a time not so distant in years as in spirit, I left my heart's home in the high mountain fastness of Stehekin, bound for the coast. The mountains are the Holy Land, God's Country, a crystalline evanescence of the Great Mother herself. But unprepared, without food or shelter, in the winter I would die. November was the limit, the edge of the abyss. Beyond November I was doomed. I must go down.
High altitudes and high latitudes test humans. Whenever there is trouble and hardship or when fear and weakness prevail, we descend. Inertia, or gravity, or some other force causes us, like water, to flow downhill.
Children who grow up in the mountains are told, "If you need to find people, follow a stream downhill." The further down you go, the more people you find. Eventually we'll all be lined up on the world's beaches, a mile deep, jostling each other towards the sea.
The relative number of people who live in the high lands is an index of a society's health. As their civilizations crumbled, Romans and Greeks and Babylonians and Mayans and all the rest, collected into ever larger cities at ever lower sites. Only the monks and the booksavers stayed in the high places and kept the faith for us all.
Your great-grandfather would never have built his house on a flood-plain. Today, suburbs sprawl across the valleys and tide flats where they are regularly inundated to everyone's surprise. Even in Paleolithic times humans lived on more of the planet than now. Many ancient archeological sites are too high in altitude or latitude to be considered habitable now. And while the rich were not nearly so well off then, the average person lived better and worked less.
If you travel the mountains in any part of the US, you will find deserted homesteads, whole ghost-towns, in areas now uninhabited, which were home to your revered pioneer ancestors. As the native peoples of the far north and the mountains lose their indigenous cultures, they move into lowland towns.
Life always looks easier down the hill. If you look up a slope, objects are enlarged, exaggerated, loom in threat. Look down and everything seems diminutive, controllable. So down we go.
Down, of course, is the wrong way. Everyone knows it. We are all supposed to strive for higher things, to climb the mountain of success, to hold the high ground. There are summit meetings and high councils and messages from on high. We do not descend into heaven or work our way down through the ranks. Even our musical scale progresses upward, (although I read in some old book that to the ancient Greeks the natural musical progression was down.)
The Bible says "Lift up thine eyes unto the hills, for therein lieth thy salvation." We all know that the right direction is up. But this is an age when the flame of human spirit flickers low and the dark pull of that other force draws us ever downward.
Usually my anti-gravity gland is very active. When my mind is clear, my body sound, my spirit true, I can let go the darkness and float upwards. From the time my Grandfather took me for a summer on the Stehekin and talked to me of the old days, I have naturally sought the high lands.
*Section of Larry Bailey's "Wake of the Whale" reprinted with permission.
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