'Tis the season for "Best of" lists, and the New York Times released its list of the 10 best books of 2011. Five were novels, and of those five, four of them were debut novels.
Which kind of bugs me, to tell the truth. And I'm not just saying that because I'm not a debut novelist.
I've never quite understood why, in the publishing world, at least, a debut novel makes people jump up and down and do handstands and basically drool all over themselves. A debut novel has built-in "buzz," that all-purpose word that defines all the things that nobody quite understands about popularity and success. Publicists -- hard working, faced with an almost impossible task these days -- delight when a decent debut novel lands in their laps; it's an easier sell, I guess. Just slap "debut" on the pitch letter and voila! Book reviews are writing themselves.
However, when that same author's second book comes out, or third, or fourth, it's often quite a different thing, especially if that debut novel did decently, but not spectacularly, well. Suddenly you can't be the "next big thing," you're yesterday's goods, even if the novel is better. And here's the thing; despite the occasional, widely-publicized flop of a follow-up to a mega-selling debut novel, usually the second novel is better. Most authors are pretty talented, and pretty hard working, and learn from every book written, which means the deeper into their career they go, the better the work.
But because of the review bias toward the "debut" novel, you might not know this. Because those subsequent novels don't get that buzz; they don't usually get the same review attention. Maybe publishers and reviewers are counting on the author now having a "following" -- again, an all-purpose word that really doesn't mean anything to the majority of authors out there because the average reader has no idea who wrote that last book she had to read for her book club. And the thinking goes that authors with followings don't need as much publicity; reviews don't really matter, because fans of the author will read any book, regardless.
But I'm not convinced that's true, not these days when readers have less leisure time and more claims upon their imagination, with social media and video games and tablets that now allow them to download movies, as well as books. These days, every book by an author who is not J.K. Rowling or Stephen King needs to be treated as a debut, because the reading public's attention span is short, bombarded as it is with Twitter and Facebook and all the other delights of technology.
This year's buzz-worthy debut author is next year's "now, who's that guy again?" In the age of Kardashian, can anyone really be expected to remember who wrote that nice little book that was mentioned, accompanied by a tiny photo of the cover, in People over a year ago? (Which, again, tends to favor debut books, if it favors books at all these days.)
The painful truth is, no. The other painful truth is that generally it takes an author several books to build up that kind of awareness, and in the past this was easier to do. But now, when every publicist is pushing the newest debut novel on increasingly weary book bloggers, and increasingly rare print review space, those subsequent books are in danger of being ignored all together.
I understand the delight in discovering a new talent, I really do. There's no baggage, only sky-high possibilities. What I wish is that more people would discover the delight in championing the talent that perseveres despite the inevitable baggage and dark clouds that comes with every career.
So I would ask readers, reviewers, book bloggers -- and, yes, people who compile those "Best of" lists -- to look beyond the debut novel. (And not only because debut novelists don't always have the stamina to stick with it and produce a second book.) Spread the love, if you will, to authors who continue to write and learn and develop and take chances.
You can only be a debut novelist once. But you can be a novelist forever -- if given the chance.