In That Book Is Dangerous: How Moral Panic, Social Media, and the Culture Wars are Remaking Publishing (MIT Press, out now), Adam Szetela, a journalist with PhD in English from the Department of Literatures at Cornell, takes a deep dive into how often well-intentioned pressure from progressives has resulted in widespread self-censorship in book publishing. While Szetela acknowledges that publishing needs to diversify, he argues that, aided by social media, much of the activism in recent years has led to the creation of a movement pressing for ever more progressive books that is “alienating the very people who want to write and read these books.” PW talked with Szetela about literary gatekeepers, diversity in publishing, and more.
What year did you begin researching this book, and what was the event or events that made you want to tackle this subject?
I’ve been closely paying attention to the phenomenon—broadly known as wokeness, cancel culture, and political correctness—since the early 2010s. It was in 2019, after the cancelation of [Amélie Wen Zhao’s YA fantasy novel] Blood Heir, which was immediately followed by the cancellation of [Kosoko Jackson’s YA novel] A Place for Wolves, that I really began paying attention to this phenomenon in literary culture. [Both books faced social media backlash for alleged insensitive depictions of slavery and the Kosovo War.]
I’m someone who is always taking notes about everything: what I’m reading, conversations I’m having, what I’m seeing in the world, and so on. Most of these notes don’t materialize into anything that sees the light of day. But in 2020, I had so many notes I started to write a book.
Given the subject matter, did you have trouble finding a publisher? Have you received much blowback since word of its publication has spread?
My book passed peer review at a major university press. It wasn’t picked up. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that they were worried about the potential for backlash. Obviously, that’s not how the peer review process is supposed to work!
If you’re scratching your head, wondering why the right aspires to defund elite universities like Harvard, Columbia, and Brown—which have become bastions of self-censorship in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion—then you’re probably part of the problem. If there’s one thing the censors hate, it’s criticism of their censorship.
Were you surprised that even high-ranking people in publishing did not want to go on the record with you? Relatedly, did you get the sense they were happy to vent about the pressure they felt to be constantly on guard for some new flash point?
The days when publishers, literary agents, and other gatekeepers had gall—those days have been over for quite some time. You’re more likely to encounter a literary agent who is a squeamish 24 year old fresh out of the English department at Yale than the next Andrew “The Jackal” Wylie.
The people I interviewed, they loved talking to me. At some point, it felt like I was an editor for The Advocate in the 1990s, and my interview subjects were coming out of the closet. After years of bottling up their fear, disappointment, and rage, I imagine it was a relief to vent.
As you note in the book, publishing is an overwhelmingly white industry. Do you have any suggestions for how the industry can become more diversified without the actions that you see as censorship by the left?
If publishing really gave a shit about increasing the diversity of its workforce, an editorial assistant at Penguin Random House wouldn’t make $51,000. Who do you think can afford to live in New York City on that? You don’t need a PhD in African American studies from Harvard to understand why there’s a diversity problem in publishing.
Since you finished the book, do you think the culture-war climate has eased to any degree in publishing?
There are enough examples to suggest the climate I explore in my book has not dissipated. Just look at what happened to Sparrow and Vine by Sophie Lark a few months ago. [Bloom Books pulled the book after criticism over some dialogue that some early readers accused of being racist.]
Notwithstanding the bromide that “woke is dead,” I actually believe political correctness may get worse over the next few years. As I argue in my book, the left’s culture war is a direct response to political defeat. You may not be able to stop Donald Trump, the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, and the majority of state legislatures—all of which are controlled by the right—but you can stop the publication of that “racist” romance novel. In the ashes of political defeat, cancel culture flourishes.
