Finding the right words to describe Charlotte Roche's Wetlands isn't always easy. The novel remains compelling throughout the read, and it's even oddly heartwarming; yet, to define it at all presents an interesting challenge. When we were talking about how to promote it in-house, it prompted heated debates. In the end, we wanted to put the ultimate decision back into the hands of the readers -- have people decide for themselves. The tagline: "Is it smut or literature? You decide." was developed after coworkers upon reading were decidedly on on either side of the tabl
The Globe and Mail embraced this idea of debating whether or not the book was smut or literature, and this past weekend three columnists, Tabatha Southey, Elizabeth Renzetti and Michael Valpy, talked freely about the novel in this context. We encouraged readers to come back and tell us what they thought through the Globe's comments.
And now we really want to get our readers involved. Check out the debate. Then Browse Inside the book (from the link within the article). Then leave your comment on the Globe's website. I've got three copies of the novel to give away to the most interesting comments.
For a bit of background on Wetlands in general, here are some good links to get you started:
- Publisher's Weekly calls the book "rich and provocative" and they interview the author about the book's controversial nature.
- The Independent asks "Are these taboo-breaking novels art or porn?"
- "Probably not for Oprah's book club" by Anne Kingston in Macleans.
And here were some advance quotes we received about the novel:
"Wetlands made me squirm-in-my-seat uncomfortable - and I loved every minute of it! Roche turns expectations about women and sexuality on their head, and does it with a frankness that's brave and hilarious. In a world where women's bodies are supposed to be nipped, tucked, shaved and douched, Wetlands is a much needed antidote."
---Jessica Valenti, author of The Purity Myth and Full Frontal Feminism
"Wetlands is at times difficult to read, but that is all the more reason to read it. Female readers will be compelled to analyze their reaction to the gross-outs of this novel, and what it says about their own ideas about femininity, but I almost hope the readers are more often male. Women: Give this book to a man who needs to read it!"
---Jessica Cutler, author of The Washingtonienne
"[Wetlands] is a headlong dash through every crevice and byproduct, physical and psychological, of its narrator’s body and mind. . . . A cri de coeur against the oppression of a waxed, shaved, douched and otherwise sanitized women’s world.”
---Nicholas Kulish, The New York Times (front page)
“An explicit novel, often shockingly so, but also a surprisingly accomplished literary work, which evokes the voice of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the perversion of J.G. Ballard’s Crash and the feminist agenda of Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch.”
---Granta Magazine
