She’d been told many times now by her so-called friends, the ones who had actually “made it” (read: compromised enough artistic integrity) in the “literature business” (a total oxymoron) that the reason she was never going to break through was because of her “unforgiving” writing style. What they meant, of course, was that she refused to impart her would-be readers with any sense of levity. Wouldn’t throw them a goddamn bone about “hope for the universe,” “humanity,” etc. That’s what they all wanted to hear. Some hollow reassurance about how we weren’t all completely and utterly fucked from the moment we came whooshing out of our mother’s vagina. Her name didn’t much assist with the “author fame game” either: Marie Slicer. As if it wasn’t bad enough her writing itself had a tendency to slice a person with its brutality and cutting observations of existence. 

Her so-called friends also begged her to switch to a pen name. She refused. Indeed, she refused to do anything that she deemed to dilute or bastardize her work. Which included, above all, altering her name as a means to miraculously become more “palatable” to readers. As if bending and breaking yourself to accommodate the tasteless hoi polloi would ever amount to creating Great Work. Marie would rather die an unknown writer like Kafka than bother with making hideous concessions in a fruitless bid to attract some publisher’s attention. Which, as a matter of fact, she already had. Several times. But every time, the consensus was the same: you need to change your ending, give it a more “hopeful” tone. Make your characters more likable. Show the readers that the people you cruelly describe are capable of some kind of redemption. Her “general note” in response was: suck my dick. 

Marie could recall the first time one of her so-called friends tried to “gently” nudge her away from this “writing style” she had “adopted.” This language suggesting she had cultivated it in a calculated manner when, in reality, all she was doing was detailing the world honestly as she saw it. Of course that was going to mean there was absolutely no hope or redemption. That was just the unvarnished truth. It was Erin, who had recently signed a book deal with HarperCollins for some hokey historical fiction romance zombie novel, that decided to “generously” tell her a few things about how “the biz” operates (as if Marie didn’t know already and deliberately chose not to cater to it). After all, as she put it, “I just really want to see you thrive. You’ve been at this for longer than me, and it’s such a terrible waste of your talent not to be making some money off it.” How could Marie have ever deigned to be friends with such a fucking capitalist phony? To boot, a capitalist phony who willingly changed her name to Rita Heartlove for the sake of her shitty book series. 

Even so, Marie decided to humor her in the conversation. She could always use it for ammunition in her writing later on in the day. To be sure, that was the only reason Marie bothered enduring social interactions at all: for material. Thus, as she poured Erin a cup of coffee, she feigned genuine interest when she asked, “And how do you propose I ‘thrive’?” 

Erin’s entire mind and body seemed to “light up” and “activate” in that moment. She was ready to spew her advice. “Well, for a start, your writing is just so…I don’t want to use the word ‘cruel,’ but maybe…unforgiving.” She took a sip of coffee. ‘Yes. That’s the best way to classify it. You have no empathy, show no mercy to your characters. People want to see at least some small glimmer of hope in this world. And it’s really our job as artists to give it to them.”

Oh Jesus Christ, Marie thought. Not that old line about “the artist’s job.” You know what the fucking artist’s job is? To tell it like it goddamn is. Aren’t the masses lied to enough on a daily basis without adding to the festering pile of those lies? To Marie, there was nothing less “artistic” than sugar-coating reality, than coddling readers with notions of “salvation.” A miraculous third-act happy ending. And she couldn’t understand when, exactly, writers such as Erin a.k.a. Rita Heartlove had somehow decided that art was about “comforting” people. Unless, that is, it was comforting the disturbed. That’s what Marie tended to do upon the rare occasions when she would actually read her work in public. An event usually met with crickets and tense silence. After which someone like Erin would be given further ammunition to tell her that she needed to “cut your audience some more slack.” Marie wanted to riposte, “The better for them to tie the rope around their neck with.” But she usually just nodded along and pretended she would try something “softer” next time. She never did, and that’s why the reading gigs eventually dried up. Her so-called friends weren’t wrong. No one wanted to hear about reality and how terrible it was. They wanted escapism, not “mirror reflections.” Apparently, only ilk like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway get that type of writer’s luxury: portraying the world as savagely as it is. Or Kafka, for that matter. Sometimes she felt it was as though he was the only person who might have understood her. 

As Erin continued to prattle on about tips for “becoming a ‘better’ (meaning more employable) writer,” Marie could finally stand it no more, interrupting her with, “I’m sorry, but was the world a ‘forgiving’ place when I was raped? My first experience with sex, by the way. Was the world a ‘forgiving’ place when they decided to finance the Manhattan Project and bomb the shit out of Japan? Was the world a ‘forgiving’ place when they assassinated every civil rights leader in the 1960s? Was the world a ‘forgiving’ place when Ronald fucking Reagan and Margaret fucking Thatcher took office at the same time? Was the world a ‘forgiving’ place when the Twin Towers went up in flames and people had to choose between dying in the burning wreckage or jumping out of the building? Wake the fuck up, Erin! The world is not a forgiving place and so neither is my writing. I don’t give a shit about ‘success,’ as you like to call it. I give a shit about saying what I have to say, no matter how ‘cringe’ it might be for most people.”

Erin, briefly taken aback by the venom in Marie’s voice, recovered long enough to stand up and gather her things to leave. Just another example of how you had to hit people over the head nowadays for them to take the hint. Pausing at the door, she looked back at Marie and said, “Then I feel sorry for you. Not just because you’ll never connect with any readers, but because you’re going to die in obscurity.”

Marie rolled her eyes and replied, “What worked for Kafka works for me.”