I refuse to admit to a Harlequin romance novel habit. There are no romance novels hidden in the bathroom cabinets and behind the copies of good books.
And I will not blame election rhetoric fatigue or midterm grading for my obsession with a new kind of romance novel, the kind “starring [insert your name here]” as the heroine in a fictional love affair. In a Book By You novel, you–yes, you–can nestle your name (and a couple of personality traits) into the fabric of a romantic plot featuring vampires, pirates, or race car drivers.
These texts are not sophisticated. (I can claim this because I do not, in any way, have a romance novel habit.) However, they do remind me of one of the reasons why I learned to read: escape. The first book I remember reading on my own transported me to a world where monkey children left the water running in the bathtub. Their house filled with bubbles, and they had to clean it all before their monkey parents came home. Another favorite book followed Thumbelina from underground to the kingdom of flowers where her fairy prince lived. I imagined I could leave water running to float on bubbles or live inside of a flower.
Now I don’t have to make too much of a leap to imagine I’m enchanted by the attentions of a charming vampire lover. These are what guilty pleasures are made of–imagining the silly and impossible while literary authors confront the world as it is, then render it beautiful through language.
That “book by me” is a temporary break from the Nobel literary controversy. I tend not to worry about how the economic downtown will affect the value of art when my character is searching the darkness for a man in a silk shirt. I can come back to the concerns and the debates over language and reality. For now, though… DIY romance.