Comments on: James Patterson, Inc.

By: Literary Fiction vs. Realistic Fiction and the Literary Hierarchy | bigWOWO

Literary Fiction vs. Realistic Fiction and the Literary Hierarchy | bigWOWO — Fri, 13 May 2011 19:56:05 +0000

[...] fiction before, and how literary fiction holds the most cachet in American letters, even if genre fiction has the biggest payouts. Almost every writer wants to be a literary fiction writer. Being a [...]

By: jaehwan

jaehwan — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:58:43 +0000

Jay Smack,

You make an excellent point. I probably should’ve mentioned Alex Cross, but I thought it might be premature since I’ve not read the character. I did, however, just finish my first Patterson novel last night. It was a fun read.

I also agree with you. THEY would be working FOR him. Unfortunately, it’s the way it goes. It’s not ideal, but if, for example, the Cross character is good, maybe he could create an equally good Asian American character?

(And the Patterson novel I read last night? It too had a co-author, but I’ve already forgotten her name!)

By: JaySmack

JaySmack — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:22:50 +0000

I think it says a LOT that James Patterson is essentially the ONLY white author who has managed to write about a non-white character (Alex Cross, which is even more remarkable because he’s black!) without bringing too much of his psychological baggage to the work. George Pelicanos also does some good work as well.

That said (and I understand that your comment is of course not meant to be taken literally) I don’t want a white guy to “corner” the market on non-white characters. That’s essentially what’s happened in film and TV and we all know how that one turned out.
A collaboration would be nice but again, would he working WITH and Asian writer, or would they be working WITH (read: for) him?
In any collaboration it’s the partner with the greater leverage who will get their own way –ask all those authors who write “Tom Clancy” franchise books how much it helped their own name recognition: not at all!