Long story short, I was hanging out with a bunch of book fans — romance fans, in fact — yesterday and the subject of working-class people in books came up.

 

The person talking about how great it is to see working-class heroes who are also billionaires was super eloquent. She cut through my privilege with a well-sharpened sword, talking about how what makes these books so attractive is the idea that billionaire-level privilege will allow working-class people to never have to worry about being taken care of, financially, again.

 

And I get that. I do. It’s a lovely goal, one every single one of us should live as our personal truth. To be taking care of financially. Hard stop on that idea. Every single one of us deserves that. (Well, except for the fascists, of course. They can spend time experiencing what too many of us do.)

 

But I’m also going to argue that if you’re a billionaire, you’re not a working-class person. You’re a billionaire with a working-class job. And that  is something entirely different.

 

So once again — back to the point I’d made that she was responding to — we tend to not see true working-class heroes in the pages of romance. TRUE working-class heroes. People who are struggling to pay their bills and take care of themselves, their families, their friends, their communities. We don’t romanticize the people who get up in the morning and put on work clothes and do the hard labor.

 

And I argue that we should.

 

These people populate the world of my current fiction project, Tales from the Sheep Farm.

 

And I’m glad I made that choice.

 

The past two months — with another on the schedule yet — I’ve been having massive work done on my house. I can talk about the racial makeup of the various crews who’ve worked on the different parts, about how each group has been very different from the last, and more, but the one thing that has struck me, as Freya Cat and I have watched from inside the house as the exterior has been taken down to the studs and rebuilt (fun times in winter, let me tell you!), the one thing that has struck me through this all is how incredibly skilled these various men have been.

 

Even on the days when members of one crew are teaching members of another, or when the original demolition crew showed up and had never done this type of work before, so they took the time to figure it out and learn, what they were doing used skills I couldn’t even imagine.

 

There’s real craftsmanship in what they do. Yes, even the demolition! They’ve had to work around my existing landscaping, on a house built into a hillside, without doing damage to what’s underneath or to each other or to larger parts of my property.

 

And yet… that’s still not represented much in fiction. Oh, you’ll see it in literary fiction. I’ve seen it pretty often in mysteries (Liz Milliron‘s books are phenomenal for that), too.

 

But romance?

 

Nope.

 

I love the genre. I do. So c’mon romance friends. Enough of the billionaires with working class jobs. Let’s see working class people with honor and dignity.

 

I don’t write romance, either. But I see working class people, even though I’m not one of you. But I do respect you and I am in awe of your skills and your various expertise, and I’m well aware of how vital you are to a healthy economy and a healthy society.

 

Pick up some of the Tales from the Sheep Farm books and see what I mean. I’m striving to give honor and dignity to all of my characters, including those we’re set up to not initially like. (Oh, wait until you get your hands on Legacy… talk about a billionaire fall from grace!)

 

If you’d like to go right to the buy links, here you go: http://Books2Read.com/Susan-Helene-Gottfried

 

People are treasures too.

This was originally posted on the West of Mars Facebook page, but I thought I’d put it here too so more of you can see it, given what Facebook does to business pages.

Romance writers! (And those who want to know what the fuss is about)

Check out Beverly Jenkins’ new book, To Catch a Raven. SO MUCH RIGHT is going on here.

One thing in particular that I want to point out is how she handles what amounts to the billionaire trope and gift-giving. I know there’s a popular sentiment that Christian Gray/Pretty Woman is the way billionaires give gifts.

I push back on it every time.

Know why?

Because it’s actually abuse. It’s a gift for the man, so that his woman fits more perfectly into his world and spares him from looking bad — which is the fear of all narcissists. The people around him should only reflect glory onto him.

Instead, check out how the more affluent Braxton showers the less affluent Raven with gifts. Note that they’re truly gifts for HER. Like bath salts. For a bath that she takes without him around; he purposely gives her space. He’s all about her me time.

And then take a look at how Ms. Bev handles the gift of a fancy dress. We see it all the time in billionaire romance.

But here, Raven has no clothing. Long story why, but she’s left her wardrobe behind. And now she’s in Boston and needs something stylish. Brax had bought a bolt of silk previously, saying only that as a tailor, he couldn’t resist.

As he offers up the silk, as he slips undergarments and gloves and other accoutrements that she needs into the purchase, it’s clear he’s doing it for her. Because he recognizes she is a woman who deserves to move among his peers comfortably — and because it is her comfort and her feelings and her emotions that matter. Not his. SHE matters, not his society circle. SHE matters, not whether or not she conforms properly. His intent is HER, not himself.

And that, my friends, is the difference. Too many billionaire trope gifts are about him, and that’s how and where they cross lines.

But when the gifts are true gifts, given for the enjoyment and pleasure of the recipient, then we’ve got romantic magic.

Yes, I work on romance novels! However, I do not have room for a new client until mid-October, at the earliest. If you need me, let’s talk!