SOME HARMFUL INFLUENCES
HARRY LEON WILSON
From the Pacific Coast—from what is enthusiastically termed "the Golden West"—from that section of the United States which is large and chivalrous and gladly suffers suffrage—comes a voice, replying to my question: "What is the matter with contemporary fiction?"
And the voice says, "Cherchez la femme!"
It is the voice of Mr. Harry Leon Wilson, author of Bunker Bean, Ruggles of Red Gap, and many another popular novel, and co-author with Mr. Booth Tarkington of several successful plays. Mr. Wilson believes that the dullness and insincerity of our novels are due to the taste of most of their readers—that is, to the taste of the women.
I asked Mr. Wilson what, in his opinion, was the influence most harmful to the development of literature in America.
"I know little about literature," Mr. Wilson replied, "but if you mean the novel, I should say the intense satisfaction with it as it is, of the maker, the seller, and the buyer. And to trace this baneful satisfaction to its source, I should say it lies in the lack of a cultivated taste in our women readers of fiction.
"Publishers are agreed, I believe, that women buy the great bulk of their output. The current novel is as deliberately planned to please the woman buyer as is any other bit of trade goods. The publisher knows what she wants to read, the writer finds out from the publisher, and you can see the result in the advertisements—and the writer's royalty statements.
"'We want,' says the publisher, 'a stunning girl for the cover and a corking good love interest to catch the women.' (Publishers do talk that way when they have safely locked themselves in their low dens.)
"This love interest is always said to be wholesome and sweet. I don't know. Certainly it is sweet enough. In the trade novel it's as if you took a segment of rich layer cake, the chocolate-and-jelly kind, poured over it a half-pint of nice thick molasses, and then, just to make sure, sprinkled this abundantly with fine sugar.