feet books

When I worked at Barnes and Noble, I came up with a rule for myself. My rule is simple; I refuse to read a book with feet on the cover. My aversion to books with feet on them started with the novel The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LaBlanc, which features a pair of feet with red toenails propped on the rim of a bathtub. I am not sure exactly what this book is about, but I would bet that it tells a very heartwarming story about a Southern gal with guts and an eccentric friend or sister or mother who finds both her authentic self and true love when she begins playing her beloved dulcimer in public, or takes up watercolor painting, or reads a pack of old letters (found in the attic of her childhood home), or looks through a scrapbook that belongs to someone who is either dead or in the process of dying.

After this book was published (and became a huge hit), lots of books began copying the “feet on the cover” look. Evidently, some marketing whiz decided that women must really love to buy books that feature cover art of a pair of feet that have just received a pedicure from the local strip-mall nail salon. There is, I suppose, something about that image that we (as women) are supposed to gravitate towards. It is as if we will look at that cover and realize that this book is about a woman just like us. A woman who gets her toenails painted a cute shade of persimmon at the Asian nail salon and has spunk and sass. A woman who is just - well - misunderstood. A woman whose problems would all disappear if she just move or return home to some idyllic small town where she could find a way to indulge her inner creative genius and who would then find out that her long-lost first love had actually been pining away for her all these years and had built a gazebo or a summer house or a sailboat from scratch - just for her and just in anticipation of the day when he would be able to take her to that gazebo or boat and tenderly make love to her (with a gentle breeze blowing) and afterwards (as they sipped hot chocolate from a thermos that he had packed) he would pledge to her his eternal fidelity.

The proliferation of these books bothers me. Somehow, they have managed to transcend the “romance” genre and they get packaged in nice trade paperback editions - with a 14.00 price tag and a non-Fabio photograph of feet on the cover. These books are categorized as “literature”, and they are shelved right next to Faulkner. I am not too much of a literary snob. I have been known to read a trashy novel or two. Trashy novels have their place. What really bothers me is that these “feet” novels are masquerading as semiserious literary offerings. As the public develops an appetite for them, these novels get published and marketed and displayed (and thus purchased and read) at the expense of artistic and thoughtful literature. “Feet books” are the equivalent of reality tv. A few reality shows are an enjoyable alternative, but once the market is glutted with them, people begin to lose access to quality, scripted television.

When I worked at the bookstore, we put up a corporate-mandated display table for women’s history month. The table had a big sign that read “Women’s Literature”. The table was full of “feet books”. I complained to one of my supervisors about the lack of actual literature on the table, but was told that the display titles had been included in our corporate bible (a.k.a. “The Daily Planner”). Still, when no one was looking, I would surreptitiously replace large stacks of titles like Confessions of A Shopoholic, Good In Bed, and Thoughts While Having Sex with stacks of novels by Toni Morrison, Edith Wharton and Margaret Atwood. Vive Le Resistance!

Comments

[Susan]

This cracked me up. I don't think I've ever read a book with feet on it. I'm going to have to head over to B&N though to see the displays. Thanks for the insight.

Susan

[gretchen from lifenut]

Good for you!

Very funny post. I don't like bookcovers with shopping bags, cell phones, blondes with ponytails, or bubble baths. Or champagne flutes. Or big red lips.