Professional Victims They are books such as Please, Daddy, No; Ugly; The Little Prisoner; Into The Light; Nobody's Child; Behind Closed Doors; Altar Boy and They Cage Animals At Night. All these books contain harrowing tales of child abuse, triumph against overwhelming odds and the subsequent gaining of a book deal. After the blockbuster book come the inevitable sequels. Most of these types of books will have a sequel; after all a sequel is only released so it can capitalize on the success of the original. Just when you think no more horrific situations can be confessed or endured, the authors detail yet more hellish experiences and how they finally managed to transcend their abusers, unless of course, in the case of Dave Pelzer, they are releasing a trilogy of books. What bad luck that man suffered! I wonder if Jenny Tomlin was tempted to write about how much money she was going to gain financially from her Professional Victim stories. Some of the situations in all three of her books are more unpleasant than the storylines her daughter Martine McCutcheon (who made an ill-fated stab at Hollywood stardom alongside Hugh Grant in Love, Actually) would act out in the soap operas she has starred in. Professional Victim books represent a curious but revolting new trend in publishing. I can attest firsthand to the popularity of these books because I worked in a library and I noted with growing horror just how many copies of these vile books were being brought in for public readership. I used to despair at the number of people who checked them out. It amazed me how quickly they would rush up to the library to collect the latest child rape/child battery/spousal abuse book and quickly depart to read their new hire. The readers of these books have a stunning array of novels to choose from. It's all Dave Pelzer's fault. His massive best-selling novel A Child Called "It" plus all the sequels have popularised a new style of book written by people who feel the need to go over their traumatic pasts over and over again. Dave Pelzer, a pig in a man's body, has unlocked the cellar door to a new strain of writer who re-enact their abuse for the benefit of the public's voracious and morbid tastes. This tidal wave of misery in print form shows no sign of abating. These books are masochistic true life tales masquerading as enlightening struggles against abuse; they have become so relentless that the online catalogue in my local library has an Abused Children entry to compensate for the sheer glut of terrible Professional Victim novels. Yes, if I want some light reading, I can go in and ask where I can find the Abused Children section. These awful books are released en masse, like a cheap products off an assembly line. The covers all look the same and are easily identified: miserable looking children peer out of the front cover with sad eyes whilst the blurbs on the back hint at a dazzling array of unpleasant abuses visited upon the children on the covers. And trust me, shops that sell books stock plenty of the Professional Victim genre. Go to your local Wal-Mart or Asda. Go to the book shelves and see the faces looking out from the shelves on their glossy finish covers. In America alone, A Child Called "It" spent over two hundred weeks on the best-seller list. It's somewhat simplifying the argument to say that profit-driven publishers will continue to operate on the principle of supply and demand. It makes commercial sense. What isn't quite so obvious is why authors decide to write them. Why dredge up all those unpleasant memories? Why the constant confessional stories of their terrible childhoods? The obvious answer would be the commonly held belief that psychologists advise victims of abuse to put everything down on paper to help them cope mentally with the strain of what occurred, in effect to purge themselves and start afresh. I was told to do this a few years back after I witnessed something very terrible which I won't go into because it's none of your business. But why sell abuse stories, make money and (in the case of Dave Pelzer and Jenny Tomlin) do it again and again and again? Surely once is enough. Why would those writers do that? Is it to help fellow sufferers? To perhaps show them that there is a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel? Do these books help fellow sufferers? The publishers' target audience probably delude themselves into thinking this. These are books that are read by people who barely read books. I learned this working in a library. People would walk in and ask me where they could find books like Please Daddy, No and then ask to join. This is boosting library issue figures but should this sort of horrible abuse be sensationalized when it's a real problem that should be tackled in a better way than a tacky book with gory details of rape included? Books like "It" and Behind Closed Doors are being read as mere entertainment, affirmations that the readers have great lives in comparison to poor Jenny Tomlin/Dave Pelzer/Constance Briscoe/Stuart Howarth/Jennings Michael Burch. These sorts of confessional books aren't exactly new. Christina Crawford infamously published her tell all book about being abused by her Oscar winning mother Joan Crawford. But Mommie Dearest was nowhere near as remotely detailed and revolting to read as some of the books I have detailed in the Professional Victims Book List. But Christina Crawford, like Dave Pelzer, has made a career out of confessional tales and abuse stories. The mere thought of someone touring like a rock star to tell stories about being battered is incredibly off-putting. I wonder if Dave Pelzer signs autographs for his fans. It seems that the accumulation of fame is so wide spread that anyone can become a celebrity, even people who turn their victimization into profit. If there are people out there who do take pleasure from these books, then it's all on a false precedent because (in the case of that moron Dave Pelzer) some of these books are curiously vague on details. Are they all true? Are they perhaps exaggerated? In the case of certain authors, there are family denials that abuse took place. Constance Briscoe, author of Ugly, is being sued by the mother who allegedly abused her! Augusten Burroughs, the author of Running with Scissors, is also being sued for his shocking account detailed in that book. Then there is Kathy O'Beirne whose book, Don't Ever Tell, was a smash hit. It was also denounced by virtually everyone concerned as lies. I have no doubt these writers start out with the best of intentions but to spin their books into a retirement scheme serves to trivialise the suffering of abuse victims. Dave Pelzer's brother even has a book out! It's about the abuses detailed in A Child Called "It" from his own perspective. This is sibling rivalry elevated to extreme heights. The situation seems to be a competition to see who out of all these writers has suffered the worst abuse at the hands of their father/mother/husband/all of the three and worse, it's being played out in a public forum. There is a sick sense that their abuse was worth it in the end for the publishing deal they got and their small measure of celebrity. If you've suffered enough abuse you might get on Montel to plug your book. But this boom in true life abuse stories isn't without risk. Sooner or later a savvy enough writer will spot the popularity of these books (as I have when I set out to write this feature) and concoct their own story to get a slice of the potential profits. Or perhaps, if the case of Kathy O'Beirne is accurate, this has already happened. They might not tell the whole truth or perhaps just exaggerate their story until it is sensationalist enough to be published and consumed by the public. Publishers seem to be so desperate for this sort of material, I have no doubt what I have described will take place if it hasn't already. *** Shortly after this feature was written, news broke that the memoir of a woman growing up in horrible poverty which led to her dealing drugs was actually a sham. The book Love and Consequences by Margaret B. Jones (in reality Margaret Seltzer) was exposed by the New York Times and thus my prophecy outlined above has been fulfilled. Funny, isn't it? The only way Margaret could redeem herself would be to admit she'd done this on purpose to expose the relentless greed of the publishing industry for publishing the most unsavoury books imaginable. But I doubt that will be the case. |