WK 7 Prompt

The article that hit home for me this week was the New Yorker piece “Literary Hoaxes and the Ethics of Authorship.” The major takeaway from this article, for me, is that literary hoaxes (and authorship in general) is a gray scale that relies heavily on intent. What I mean is, someone’s intent in assuming a different identity or writing a story is what becomes the deciding factor as to whether or not it is ethical (in most cases). This formula might not work in every case, but I do think it can work for some. One example, as the article points out, is George Eliot: “Mary Anne Evans was trying to trick readers by pretending to be a male author named George Eliot. But many women writers have adopted male names, and some still do, or use initials to go gender-neutral” (Menand, 2018). Her intent was to trick, but the reasoning was so she could avoid sexism in the literary world – a woman novelist would never be published yet alone taken seriously. Her intent was at its core not maleficent. However, assuming the identity of another race has ill intent. This can be seen in the example of Danny Santiago/Daniel James, a white man who claimed to be Chicano. The author writes, “In an intercultural hoax, therefore, the hoaxer is often white and the fake persona is often a person of color. The white writer is appropriating the experience of a nonwhite person—“performing” a self…. He performed a new identity” (Menand, 2018). Obviously, this man had ill intent (consciously or unconsciously). Not because he wanted to paint a bad picture surrounding Chicanos (quite the opposite, as many Chicano authors praised the work), but because he wanted to take on a new identity in order to hide his white privilege and to infiltrate a community. Honestly, everything is such a case by case basis that I am not even sure my aforementioned formula would even work every time.

I will say we are in an age obsessed with authenticity, and this deeply guides our parasocial relationship with authors and books. It comes down to your own feelings about how much you value authenticity, and whether or not the authenticity is a matter of harming communities. Since James Patterson’s author mill doesn’t really harm anyone, and if you feel comfortable with knowing the face didn’t pen the words, more power to you. Do whatever you want, especially if you’ve acknowledged the implications and done your research. Go ham.

References

Menand, L. (2018, December 3). Literary hoaxes and the ethics of authorship. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/literary-hoaxes-and-the-ethics-of-authorship