REALIZING I DON'T HAVE A FAVORITE AUTHOR

I was sitting in a coffee shop, looking to kill time, when I pulled out In a Narrow Grave by Larry McMurtry. Grave was an impulse purchase, full price, from Barnes and Noble a few weeks back. I rarely impulse buy books and I rarely pay full price, so for me to impulse buy a retail price book is like seeing a chupacabra. What makes my deviation even more surprising is that I’ve never read Lonesome Dove or any of McMurtry’s books, and yet, when I passed by the little “staff recommends” shelves, Grave jumped out at me with a force that was not to be denied. So I paid the $16.95 for a 200-page paperback (highway robbery, I say), and I’ve been toting it around with me, waiting for the right time to dip in and see if my money was well spent. I’d only gotten a few pages in, through the preface and the forward and the introduction (for such a short book, it sure has a lot of prologue), but just in the course of those thirty pages I had the distinct thought that I had stumbled onto a new favorite author. Which was immediately followed up by the thought of, “wait, do I have a favorite author?”

I have favorite books, of course. I can rattle off a list of at least ten books that I love. Ranking them is a bit harder, but there’s clay there that I could whittle down into something concrete – a definitive list of my all-time favorites. But authors? I have authors that I like, sure, but if someone asked me to name my favorite author, or to even list an unranked five, I don’t think I could do it. The easiest solution would seem to be thinking of my favorite books and the authors who wrote them should then qualify as my favorites, but my brain or my heart or one of my recalcitrant organs bucks at this thought. I have affection for the objects, but, for me, that reverence doesn’t seem to transfer to their creators.

There are authors whom I admire, who could maybe fall into the category of favorite, but I don’t always love all of their books, or even most of their books. I’m reading through all of Neil Gaiman’s oeuvre, and while his short stories and children’s fiction have brought me much joy, the majority of his adult novels I’ve read have left me feeling flat. Even if I loved The Graveyard Book and Trigger Warning, if I truly disliked Neverwhere how can I call him a favorite? I don’t think it’s just disliking one of an author’s books that disqualifies them as being deemed a favorite author. I also balk if certain works of theirs inspire apathy. I deeply love Rainbow Rowell’s contemporary novels, but honestly, have no interest in her fantasy series. How then can I call myself a true fan if I don’t even want to bother with some of her most popular works?

I love Jane Austen and C.S. Lewis, but even them I have trouble considering as my favorite authors. I’m a white, Christian, American female. Saying I love Austen and Lewis is like saying I love chocolate or Gilmore Girls. Loving them is practically a prerequisite of my breathing. The “no kidding” factor aside, I’m also hesitant to refer to them as my favorite authors because there are others out there who love those authors SO MUCH more than I do. I mean, I consider Elinor and Anne personal friends, but I don’t spend my vacation days in regency dress at conventions and, while The Great Divorce changed how I saw the world, I don’t know Lewis’s brother’s first name, much less his middle name and date of birth.

There are books that I love, but I haven’t read any of the author’s other works. I think Kindred by Octavia Butler may be the most perfect novel written in English, but I haven’t read her Earthseed duology or Xenogenesis trilogy, so who am I to say if she’s a favorite. I think N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy is brilliant and worthy of all the hype and accolades it has received. But I literally haven’t read a single other word she’s written. There are authors whom I’ve enjoyed everything they’ve written but I don’t respect them because, as much joy as their books have brought me, I find the craft that went into them less impressive than in other books. I know, believe me I KNOW, how horrendously snobby that is and exactly why I am not putting example of authors for this category because I know that the problem lies with me. All of this, all of these rules and disqualifications are my own random and nonsensical problems.

I have no doubt that a number of you reading this are thinking, “Em, this all makes no sense. Literally, every person you mentioned obviously counts as a favorite author for you.” And maybe you’re right. No, not maybe. Almost certainly you are right. Still, the phrase, “one of my favorite authors” tastes like vinegar coming out of my mouth, even in regards to authors whom I watch for. Those would be authors whom, if I hear they’re coming out with a book (or, for the dearly departed authors, that there are books in their bibliography I’d yet to discover) my interest would at least be piqued. I’d have no problem putting all the authors I’ve previously named on that list. I’d add Roxane Gay, Scott Lynch, Mary H.K. Choi, Leigh Bardugo, Louisa May Alcott, Sylvain Neuvel, Michael J. Sullivan, Alwyn Hamilton, L.M. Montgomery, Katherine Arden, S.A. Chakraborty, Daniel O. Malley, Bill Clegg, Angela Carter, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mindy Kaling, Nicholas Eames, Catherynne M. Valente, Ken Liu, Eowyn Ivey, and Kurt Vonnegut. Maybe it’s just a problem of semantics for me. I may not have favorite authors, but I have plenty of authors I trust. I recognize that this categorization is a matter of semantics, that I am making a distinction without a difference, but it’s my brain and I’ll call those authors what I want to. And I categorically refuse to rank them, and we will all just have to learn to live with the ambiguity.

#books #personal