by lainadRomance novels are predominately centered around the type of emotions that many of us find lacking in our everyday lives: Being swept off our feet by someone who sees us for who we are (can you feel the sarcasm dripping from my laptop?) That loves us, despite our physical appearances, our emotional baggage or the social, political and economical situations that can deter two people from finding each other.
Romance novels -
But hey, don't we all need a delightful distraction in our lives?
Over the past decade or so, many people of color found that the heavily marketed romance novels contained stories and situations that did not reflect their personal experiences. With Fabio on the cover clutching a willowy blonde in his arms, served as a reflection that the contents of the book were directed towards a market that didn't include them.
According to Gwendolyn Osborne, who wrote the article It's All About Love for the African American Literature Book Club, it was 1992's Waiting to Exhale, the successful novel by Terry MacMillan that spawned not only a publishing press for black novelists but imprints dedicated to black romantic novels:
Blacks who read the early African-American romance fiction were drawn to the stories about middle-class Blacks with whom they were able to identify and who were involved in committed relationships. But psychologist Renee A. Redd, director of Northwestern University's Women's Center, says the benefits for readers are often more than superficial. Redd says that romance fiction provides an escape from the social realities many African-American women face.
Beverly Jenkins is probably the most well-known African-American author, revered for her historical romance novels. These are seen as important to her legion of admirers as they provide a unfamiliar narrative about black romance, especially during the 19th Century. She has also written books for a younger demographic and a romantic suspense novel.
There are several books that besides the above, discuss more contemporary issues facing African American romantic issues. Jenkins has also written more 'modern day' novels, and there is Got a Man by Daaimah S. Poole that discusses single parenting and infidelity and Anita Doreen-Diggs wrote A Mightly Love about a couple that has to fall in love again after suffering a tragedy.
But there was also a demographic of people who felt that MacMillan's rather bourgeois narratives of black life were a bit too fantasy- like. One of the best accounts of 'real' black life - and targeted towards a younger audience in the Hip-Hop generation- is Sister Souljah's excellent book The Coldest Winter Ever, a harrowing account of the travails of Winter, a young woman trying to find herself among a highly dysfunctional life. Not necessarily a 'romance novel,' it had a more realistic description of a young African-American woman trying to find herself through men - with disastrous results.
There is also Bling, by Erica Kennedy, about a young woman finding love and success as a singer at the height of Hip-Hop fabulousness in New York City. Well written and a bit gritty, some said that the book is eerily similar to the relationship between Mariah Carey and her first husband, Tommy Mottola.
Mistress, by Meisha J. Camm and Every Thug Needs a Lady by Wahida Clark are sometimes referred to as the insultingly-tagged 'Ghetto-Lit' or 'Street Fiction.' They are a string of novels directed towards young, urban audiences, often not published via mainstream book publishers and often self-published.
Interracial relationships, especially between black women and white men, are still pretty taboo. Professor Guy Mark Foster has written a paper on the complexities on interracial relationships within black romance novels.
For information on romance novels directed towards black lesbian audiences, check out the list on this blog, Dare to be Different.
A list of black romance novels can be found via the Harlequin imprint, Kimani Romance.
(http://www.blogher.com/black-romance-novels-historical-romances-ghetto-lit?wrap=valentines-day-2009)
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