Some Dish on the Christy Awards

I was a judge in the Christy Awards again this year -- I think it was my fifth time -- and we recently had the big evening gala where the awards were given out.  So now I can break my silence about what I thought about this year's batch of submissions.

First, the event.  I think this was one of the best Christy evenings ever.  Bret Lott was a marvelous speaker, and since he is primarily coming from an ABA perspective I felt that he was able to say some challenging things from a fresh POV.  It was also just a fun evening.  Awards night always feels like the Prom to me, with everyone dressed to the nines and revved for an exciting time.  You'd be surprised at how many good-looking writers there are in the CBA.  Some totally hot editors, too.  These people clean up well.

I was also delighted with some of the wins.  I blogged several months ago about Athol Dickson's River Rising and was pleased to see it win in the suspense category, though it's a real stretch for me to think of that as a suspense novel.  And Vanessa del Fabbro's The Road to Home was a superb choice in the contemporary category; I enjoyed and was challenged by her novel about racial reconciliation in contemporary South Africa. 

And speaking of challenging, the greatest surprise of the night was the selection of the dark tale This Heavy Silence in the First Novel category, the category I was judging.  It was one of my top picks (it would have been higher, but I had to take off points for excessive typographical errors -- Paraclete says they are working on this problem, which also affected one of their submissions last year).  But I was frankly surprised that other judges seemed to agree, because this is pretty edgy fiction for the CBA, and was not in fact written or marketed for this audience.  I found that refreshing, as was the fact that the novel raises more questions about faith than it dares to answer.  It was also beautifully written.  Apparently I was not the only one who was surprised; novelist Nicole Mazzarella, who was seated near me, was downright shocked that she won.  Her wonderful publicist was over the moon and crowing and snapping photos like a proud mama.

So that's the good news.  As a judge, every year I've been able to say quite honestly that despite generally uneven quality and a few total dogs in each batch, the overall picture for Christian fiction continues to improve.  This year, however, gave me pause.  What was interesting was that my main criticism in the past -- that the novels tended to be overly didactic and preachy -- was not a common problem among the 25 novels I read.  There were only a few that hammered readers over the head with A Message.  Instead, this year's problems were technical: characters who were important in the first half of the book who entirely disappear in the second.  Plot threads that go absolutely nowhere.  Stock characters and plots that are almost entirely predictable. Overuse of sentence fragments.  And excessive conjunctions at the beginning of sentences.

Yes, that was intended to be ironic.

I always make lists of the formulae and plot chestnuts I'm noticing from year to year.  Some of these don't change: I've counted more widowed (and, as Meg Ryan says in Sleepless in Seattle, "widowered") protagonists than I care to remember.  I believe this is because Christian novelists want to depict heroines and heroes who are sympathetic characters but are mature enough to have been involved in a serious relationship in the past.  Bumping off the previous spouse is apparently the best possible device to achieve that in a subculture where prolonged singleness is viewed with a suspicion only exceeded by the censure engendered by divorce.  One of the novels in this batch -- which was otherwise a promising and well-written debut -- featured not just a middle-aged widow but a corresponding widower who was made all the more appealing for his poignant devotion to his dead wife.  Of course the two saddies eventually get together.  Yada, yada.  And in that book the cliche was exacerbated by the unimaginative prevalence of car accidents, causing me to complain in my editorial comments, "This novel has not one, but two deaths by hit-and-run (see p. 13 & 166).  Can’t we have cancer or a blood clot or a heart attack, just this once?  Please, oh please?"

Other trends I noticed this year included

• climactic storms or sea squalls;
• a fascination with spiritual warfare and hell; 
• details about interrogation techniques; 
• main characters who conveniently inherit a house or a fortune; 
• sidekicks in comas; 
• recovering alcoholics;
• and heroines with green eyes and red hair. 

I'm waiting for the novel that features a heroine who embodies or experiences all of these things.  I surely want to see a kick-butt, recently widowed, red-headed FBI agent whose partner is in a coma while her dead great-aunt leaves her a house and she interrogates demon-possessed criminals, carefully scrutinizing their body language and shifty eyes.  I think I will have to give extra points for all that. 

The fact is, though, that many of these formulae are common and successful in secular genre fiction too.  I mean, have you read a Jodi Picoult novel lately?  (If not, see list of all of the above, add weepy hospital scenes, and stir.  I mean, I enjoy the stuff and applaud her authentic characters, but plot-wise, it's mac & cheese, man.) 

Throughout these novels, I want to be asking myself what these submissions tell us about the state of evangelical Christianity in early 21st-century America. And more importantly, I want to ask what they tell us about what novelists and readers believe about Jesus.  The sad reality is that most of these books barely skim the surface of what passes for Christian belief.  They tell us about characters' spiritual lives by describing the Christian products they use, the music they listen to, and the kinds of churches they attend.  Christianity becomes another consumerist choice that leads to characters' "self-actualization" (a direct quote from one of the novels).  At their worst, these novels present the gospel as a transaction not unlike a purchase, a commodity that serves mostly to improve the main character's quality of life.

Another odd thing was pointed out to me by a friend who was a judge in another category.  In her category (and when she mentioned this, I realized this was true of mine as well), the world was tidily divided into two distinct categories: Christian (which means Protestant) and non-Christian.  No other religions exist in the worlds of these novels.  My batch had no Jews, Baha'is, Hindus, Buddhists, and only a couple of Catholics--a striking omission when you consider that one in five Americans is Roman Catholic.  There were several Muslims in my novels, but every single one of them was a terrorist or suspected terrorist.  Obviously, this is a startlingly narrow worldview we're exploring.

What's more, there was a bizarre constancy to the reason that major characters were not (yet) evangelical Christians.  It was never because of other priorities, or plain laziness, or a legitimate questioning about the rationality of belief, but always because they had been burned by some aspect of Christian culture in the past, or disappointed with how reality diverged from what they'd been taught to expect from God.  And of course all of that pain can be neatly swept away as these characters encounter good and loving Christians who are not the hypocrites that had hurt them in the past.  I guess I'm curious as to all of the recovery going on in these books: looking at them as a batch, they seem to be the cultural products of people who might have themselves felt burned by damaging religious cultures and are trying to work out that salvation with fear and trembling in the pages of their fiction.  This can make (and has made) for some very powerful storytelling, but it doesn't square with my own experience about why most people aren't interested in Christianity. 

This has turned into quite a long and rambling post.  Onward, Christian fiction!  Er, faith fiction!  Er, religious fiction!  Whatever we call it, God bless it.  The best of it is truly inspiring.

 

Comments

[lisa]

Oh, my gosh. I'm guilty! Rejection of God due to theodicy issues--check. No hindus or muslims--check. (I do have Catholics though.) And I recently had Quakers. Does that count for something?

Great post.

[will]

Shoot. I was working on a novel about a brunette CIA agent with an alcoholic partner who is in a coma herself while kicking her great-aunt's butt with her magic mind powers, all the time slaying demons without body language or shifty eyes. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

[BJ]

Draft. I've got one of those green-eyed redheads in my book. I didn't know any better than to fashion her after my own father and half a dozen aunts and cousins, all of whom are--you guess it: redheads with green eyes. Another cliched Christian novel.

BJ Hoff

[BJ]

Yes, that *was" supposed to be "Drat," not "draft." Now I'm a writer of cliched novels who can't spell.

BJ

[CGK]

It looks like you have to be an author of a Bethany book or not sell any books at all to win a Christy award. Your other option would be to be an expert on politics and religion in the 21st century and be able to write an interesting story based on that to win an award.

It seems you are penalizing and complaining about books based on the fact that there are too many books written on a certain topic or a topic you don't like, that's not fair is it? Publishers are in the business to reach the masses with great stories the consumers want to read. I am tired of hearing the compalints of the judges that there weren't very many good books submitted. Ask the retailers and consumers what books they'd like to see win and I know for a fact you'd get a whole different list.

I guesss to be a Christy award winner the mention of God or Christian can't be anywhere in the book? If you are a "Christian Publisher" why even submitt your titles if you know off the bat you are not even going to be considered because you have "too much Christian content" isn't that why readers go to CBA stores, to buy a book they know will have the content they want? It just seems odd that the Christy's will take the publishers money for submissions knowing they don't have a chance, they're happy to do that. I say let the consumers speak for themselves and the best-sellers list decide what's top fiction and what's not.

For what it's worth that was my take away from the Christy's.

[Angie]

Whew! My WIP is about a black-haired, blue-eyed divorcee who inherits a funeral home! (Skating awfully close to the edge on that one!) Nobody's in a coma because most of the folks are, well, dead. :-)

Thanks for the enlightening list! Seriously, I was very interested in your perspective on reasons why people don't accept/reject Christianity. Fascinating!

Angie

[Jana Riess]

These comments have been super-fun. I think most people have understood the spirit in which this post intended -- thanks. I would say to one of the previous posters that it's pretty ridiculous to suppose that novels that mention "God" or "Christian" can't win Christys. For evidence of this, you might actually read the ones that won.

And there is definitely a place for a competition that is judged by writers, editors and scholars; you're quite right to say that some of these novels are challenging to readers, and they don't always have the most stellar consumer sales. But part of the point of my post is that the majority isn't always right. Just because retailers and consumers might have chosen something else doesn't make the bestseller du jour a better book. Those authors can be rewarded while they sip their alcohol-free cocktails on a cruise ship and count their royalties in their heads. The Christy winners can have, well, the Christy. :-)

[Brandilyn Collins]

Hey, Jana, maybe all those books feature green-eyed, red-haired protagonists because the world knows there is indeed no finer female to be found.

[Stuart]

Interesting comments and perspectives.

Perhaps it is time for more green skinned, red eyed heroines in CBA novels. ;)

[John Robinson]

Good blog, Jana. And I'll up you one on the ante. How's about the struggling Christian writer (like me) who's writing nasty, ugly, funny, harrowing tales for the men's market? My books are out (nationally stocked, more's the miracle) and doing as well as can be expected (given the uphill dynamics of the climb), but DAYUM! it can be a booger. Even so, I forsee better times for us all.

[Dee Stewart]

CGK, I can't agree with the statement:

"I say let the consumers speak for themselves and the best-sellers list decide what's top fiction and what's not."

Best-sellers list are not synonymous with best writing. I am was a Christy Judge and from my knowledge of the other judges they are heavy christian fiction readers, who are Christian.

I agree, Jana. This Heavy Silence was an incredible read. I thought River Rising was the best book I read in 2005 until I remembered that the book doesn't come out until 2006. :) So 2006 then.

Christian fiction should be better than secular. Our stories should contain a special element that secular writers who use church settings or church drama to build readership can't match. NYT bestseller's list have titles like The Preacher's Son, A Sin and a Shame, The Davinci Code, Angel's Fall that aren't written with our worldview in mind. But they are getting our readership and some of our new writers. And that's an issue.

[melrose]

I thought I was the only one keeping the "sidekick-in-coma" tally going.

I love how the redheaded and green-eyed heroine is well on the way to becoming the Christian Fiction archetype.

This was a highly amusing post!

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