BENJAMIN LEROY

(After Publishers Weekly wrote an article about me deciding to branch out from just crime fiction, I wrote this piece to discuss it further. Then this discussion happened over at Poe’s Deadly Daughters. I’m responding to that below.)

At some point, we get to a chicken/egg question. Is the violence influencing our art? Or is our art influencing our violence.

I make no claims of a scientific nature about causation. I can’t point to any particular incident and say, “If only I hadn’t published Reed Farrel Coleman, those people would still be alive.”

In personal experience, I know that when I get sucked into the 24 Hour News Cycle revolving around socio-political issues of the day (pick a day), I am quickly influenced by what ultimately amounts to half-formed noise from television personalities. I “learn” the talking points that reflect my understanding of the world, I define those who disagree with me as “uninformed” and I feel my blood pressure rise each time I see clips of “the other side” repeating their talking points. I feel sympathetically enraged each time somebody from “my side” posts a link on Facebook, says something on a news program, writes an editorial in a newspaper, etc.

With complete honesty, I can say that I am, on some level complicit in my own manipulation.

And I’m actively thinking about it. I’m aware of what’s going on, and I’m still participating.

Thankfully, I know when I am exposed to positive, rage-free, community building efforts, I am similarly moved to participate. I am grateful to know many people trying to make the world a better place, and I consider myself blessed to join them when I do.

I say this next part knowing all generations come to similar conclusions—but it seems like we are living in an exceedingly volatile time. Even if all of the violent media consumed doesn’t cause copycat acts of violence, what does it do to the hardwire of our brain as far as our perception of those around us, most notably the strangers on the “other side” goes?

There’s a reason that manipulative 24 Hour News Cycle does what it does. It makes money confirming our biases, keeping us scared, and selling us products.

If I understand that, but continue to put out gratuitous violence simply because it sells, then I have to acknowledge that I am part of the problem. If I acknowledge that I am part of the problem, and do nothing to change my behavior, then I have to ask some pretty serious questions of myself.

I’m no longer prepared to dismiss the question simply because “that’s the way things are,” as though we had no power to change them. If we can create a world of divisiveness and an us/them binary, what’s to stop us from building a more compassionate, more connected world? Because it’s “hard?” Because “this is the way things have always been?”

How’s that working out for all of us?

I acknowledge that violence is a real thing. I will admit, without hesitation, that some of what makes the books I’ve published over the years work as well as they do is their portrayal of violence and how it effects the people it hits. But I think to label “violence” as a monolithic element of storytelling does a great disservice to the point of the violence and what we can learn from it. There is a huge distinction, for me, between a gratuitous body count that leaves the reader numb and unable to think too long about the concentric circles of the acts before the next thing happens, and a book centered around a single act of violence that then gets explored from 360 degrees for the rest of a book.

Of course there is middle ground. Of course this experience is going to be different for each reader. We all arrive at our truths on different trains at different times. Sometimes it’s not even the same station. Noted.

The interview with Publishers Weekly was well over an hour long. Obviously, not everything I said made it to print, including some of the more nuanced parts of my position. To be clear I’m not saying that anything I’ve published has incited a school shooting or, for that matter, any specific act of violence. But I don’t believe the power of media (tv, music, video games, books) to influence can be reflected simply in direct acts of violence. What does the noise of it all do to the way we interact, in more mundane ways, in our daily life?

That’s the question I’ve asked of myself.

I am still, very much, searching for the answer.

If you've got thoughts, I'd love to hear them over on my blog where the conversation is already going on.

http://www.benjaminleroy.com/on-the-repercussions-of-crime-fiction-an-ongoing-conversation/