Happily Ever After

Episode Transcript

Adwoa Adusei I’m Adwoa Adusei, writer and co-host, and I’d like to introduce one of our new producers and co-hosts: Ali Post, librarian at Mill Basin Library. Hi, Ali! 

Ali Post Hey, Adwoa! It's good to be here.

Adwoa Adusei And, it's Valentine’s Day! So on Borrowed, we are devoting our whole episode to Romance novels.

Ali Post I’m excited to dig into the Romance genre. 

Adwoa Adusei Me too. Let’s dive right in. This is Borrowed, stories that start at the library. 

[Music]

Jennifer Proffitt So, if you were looking for Romance at Central Library, there is a whole designated section within Language & Literature. It's a whole wall of books dedicated to Romance alone and has a little sticker on the spine just in case they were mis-shelved or you got lost. 

Ali Post Recently, producer Virginia and I went on a tour of Central Library’s Romance section with Jennifer Proffitt, BPL’s Digital Marketing Manager and a Romance enthusiast. As a librarian, I see a lot of Romance novels getting returned and checked out, and I wanted to ask Jenn about them and how they've changed. She knows a lot about the history of cover design, and we got to ask her about some of the more risqué covers, which was pretty interesting and fun. 

Jennifer Proffitt So, this is Historical Romance, and this is a fairly typical cover that we have here. So, you know, it's what we call a clinch cover. It is, you know, a couple in an embrace on the cover, usually with some level of disrobing. I do see — a not clinch cover down here, which is one those Scottish ones I was talking about. [Laughs] So, coming out of the water, he is not even wearing a kilt and bare-backed.

Ali Post He's not wearing anything. 

Jennifer Proffitt Yeah, that is heavily implied. That letter is doing a lot of work to make this okay for shelves.

Ali Post So, Jenn's not only an enthusiast, but she also used to work in Romance publishing before coming to BPL.

Adwoa Adusei And maybe we should pause here to define what we’re talking about when we say “Romance novel.”

Ali Post Yeah, so to be considered a Romance, the story has to have a happy ending, and the love story has to be the main focus of the book. Here’s how Jenn put it.

Jennifer Proffitt Books that follow a relationship as it develops throughout the plot, and the plot is all moving towards having that final goal of the couple get together. If we're looking at love stories, those might still have those same attributes to the storyline, but doesn't necessarily mean that the couple gets together at the end, which is a must in a Romance of the genre. 

Ali Post Jenn’s love of Romance goes all the way back to when she was a teenager working at her local library. 

Jennifer Proffitt You know, as a 16-year-old, I would sneak books home. Or, because I was supposed to be shelving them, I would just come to the desk with like a bigger pile than I had put away. And then, it wasn't until I went to my local bookstore, I think, and I was looking in their fiction section, and I couldn't find the authors I was looking for. And then I finally got up the gumption as like, a 16-year-old, to talk to a clerk, and she pointed me to the Romance section. And that was the first time I was like—oh, this is what I'm reading. I'm reading Romance. That's what I'm looking for.

[Music]

Jennifer Proffitt So, this is another clinch cover. This is Cat Sebastian. So it's two men here dressed in historical garb and, you know, this is also an interracial couple here on this cover. So it's like two for one. You wouldn't have seen this on a Romance cover 20 years ago, certainly. You know, lot of times, with queer romances in the past, it would practically look like literary fiction. You know, it'd be the outside of a house or, you know, a barstool tipped over. So to actually see this traditional clinch cover for a Romance between two men is really, you know, kind of shows how much the genre has changed. 

Ali Post So, just to take a step back here, I think it’s important to note that the Romance genre is really popular at BPL. Staff at the library estimated that about five to ten percent of Adult print circulation at BPL is Romance. And that’s not even taking into account reading on ebooks and audiobooks, which is harder for us to track. And, nationally, according to publicly-available stats from 2018, the Romance genre brings in about 1.3 billion dollars to the publishing industry every year in the United States. One out of every four books sold is Romance, and half of all mass market paperbacks are Romance. Those number don’t include the massive self-publishing Romance industry. 

Adwoa Adusei Safe to say that Romance readers are a force to be reckoned with. We talked to Stephanie Anderson, the assistant director of selection at BookOps, which is the shared technical services organization for NYPL and BPL. Basically, she manages the team of librarians that select and order everything you can borrow from the library.

Stephanie Anderson The thing that publishing, and I think libraries too, get wrong about Romance readers is they think Romance readers only read Romance. When in fact, most Romance readers are just some of the best readers you'll ever meet in your life. They're just avid readers. They just love reading. They read everything, and they buy books for everybody in their lives. 

Ali Post And, Stephanie said that–anecdotally at least —at the library, we have seen Romance readership grow in the last couple of years.

Stephanie Anderson During the pandemic, a lot of people signed up for library cards for the first time to use our digital collections. And I think a lot of people then wanted to read what was cool and what's been on BookTok and all these other places that people learn about books has been a lot of Romance. And you know, if you're stressed, if you're under a lot of pressure, which all of us have been for the last three years, like, nothing feels better than a Romance novel. 

Adwoa Adusei Yeah, that's basically how I was introduced to Romance novels. During the pandemic, I was actually listening to podcasts that were recommending Romance novels. So, here we are. It's full circle.

Ali Post That makes sense. So I started working at BPL this year, and I was so struck by the amount of Romance that our patrons were reading and requesting. Personally, I had not really read Romance before, and I felt like I needed to catch up so that I could better advise our patrons. And I also noticed that Romance readers don't usually just take out one book. We have some readers who come in and they will regularly check out more than ten books at a time. So I was just super impressed by how much these readers were reading, and how quickly.

Adwoa Adusei Perhaps one of the reasons that Romance is growing in popularity is that there are just more kinds of Romance stories out there now. The genre is really diversifying. And, in order to explore that aspect, we talked to writer, podcast host, and romance enthusiast Nichole Perkins. She shared a great story about how she discovered the genre. She chanced upon her first Harlequin after discovering a stash of them among her great-grandmother's possessions. Nichole’s great-grandmother was a domestic worker in early 20th century Tennessee who could not read. And so, as any avid young reader herself, Nichole’s curiosity piqued.

Nichole Perkins Like, why does she have these books in her cabinet if she couldn't read? And one of the books was this Romance novel called The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss. Changed my life, just completely changed my life. 

Ali Post The Flame and the Flower is a Historical Romance that was published in 1972. The novel is about a young English woman who was “kidnapped and ravished” by an American sea captain and plantation owner. And here, ravished is code rape, which in the book, leads to a love marriage and lots of other social intrigue. The book was wildly popular in the 70s and 80s, and it’s one of the first modern bodice rippers. And, it left a lasting impact on Nichole.  

Nichole Perkins It is very problematic, looking at it now. There was a point in my life where I re-read it every year. I think I've owned maybe ten copies of it throughout my life, at this point. I still go back to revisit it just to make sure that it's as terrible as adult me knows it to be. But also, little eight-year-old me is like, this is fantastic.

Adwoa Adusei Books like The Flame and the Flower are examples of the lack of diversity of the genre at the time. As an African-American woman growing up, Nichole came to expect an absence of racial diversity and saw it on the covers of the books. So, she came up with a creative way around that. 

Nichole Perkins I would do this thing where I would avoid—if the book cover had a blonde and blue-eyed person on it, or even just blonde,  I would skip it. But if they were dark-haired, I would pick it up and I would just pretend that the people were Black. They were just like very fair skinned. [Laughs] Because one of the things that I notice is if there is an absence of race mentioned, then they're white. It's only when they have to identify the difference of whiteness, right, that you get someone is Black or someone is Asian or whatever. So, that's what I would have to do when I was younger to trick myself.

Adwoa Adusei Because Historical Romance sometimes left much to be desired in terms of non-problematic depictions of race, class, gender and sexuality, Nichole turned to Romance subgenres in order to find different stories.  

Nichole Perkins And that's when I found Paranormal Romances with the vampires and werewolves and shapeshifters and people who were like, time traveling and stuff like that. I mean, they were still human beings, you know, whatever. And there was still a lot of race issues in there, but it was kind of like, I can't find what I'm looking for, so I'm just going to pretend that some immortal out there wants me. That's, I don't know ... [Laughs]

[Music]

Ali Post In her own writing, Nichole aspires to make space within the canon for subversion: connecting with audiences by turning the readers’ assumptions about race and class on their head, and moving beyond cover impressions to real-life practicalities. 

Nichole Perkins I want people to understand that everybody can fall in love. It doesn't matter—like, anybody can fall in love. Everybody. You can be poor. I recently asked a question on Twitter, like, have you ever read a Romance novel where the characters were poor or lower class and stayed that way? Because a lot of times we have these kind of Cinderella stories where they start off, you know, lower class and then they meet a duke or they meet, you know, this mafia millionaire. So I've been thinking a lot about what does it say, about who can ... who's allowed to fall in love?

Adwoa Adusei Nichole did share that she’s working on her first Romance novel … and is looking forward to adding to the canon of Black love Romances that have been coming out in the last few years.

Nichole Perkins Something that's also important to me is showing the diversity of Black womanhood and showing that we come not only in many different shapes and sizes and shades, but also different life experiences. And so I want to reflect that in my work.

Ali Post I can’t wait until it comes out, and we can read it. 

Adwoa Adusei We’re all eagerly awaiting the publication, Nichole!  

[Music] 

Adwoa Adusei To end this episode, we thought we’d round things out with stories of how readers started their love affair with the Romance genre, and why they continue to read Romance.  

Ali Post In addition to talking with Stephanie Anderson and Nichole Perkins, we attended a virtual Romance book club meeting—organized by Jennifer Proffitt and a bunch of her friends. So, you’ll hear some of their voices, too. Thanks so much to Jess, Jen W, Heather, and Jenn Proffitt for letting us sit in on their book club.  

Jess One of my earliest reading Romance memories is my mom sitting at our kitchen table, like, we were doing homework and I remember her reading the Outlander series and describing the plot to me in depth. And then it wasn't until I was older and I read the Outlander series myself that I realized that my mom was reading potentially scandalous material at the kitchen table. [Laughs]

Jen W My first experience with Romance was definitely just walking down the aisles of the library, by happenstance picking it up and like, snuck it in between my school reading books that I had to get. [Laughs]

Nichole Perkins I remember what really sealed the deal about Romance novels was I did a book report in my fifth grade class, and later my teacher pulled me to the side and she was like, I think next time you need to pick something that's a little bit more age appropriate. And of course, me being a very stubborn child, I was like, oh, this is something I'm not supposed to do? This is something I'm not supposed to enjoy? Say no more. This is going to be my identity for the rest of my life. [Laughs]

Jess I think working in publishing, we all have developed even further appreciation for Romance, specifically from a financial perspective, because it pretty much keeps the rest of the industry afloat. So, people can mock Romance all they want, but it's what allows every other author to have their book deal. I would never be embarrased to read Romance, and I think it gets a bad rap because it's often women going after what they want … it's no more or less formulaic than any Mystery or Sci-Fi novel.

Jennifer Proffitt I think Romance novels, even though they end in a happily ever after no matter what, they allow a safe place for people to process very complex feelings. There are so many Romance novels that deal with grief and pain in ways that you cannot feel safe to do that in other books. 

Stephanie Anderson I think if you’ve never read a book with a guaranteed happy ending, it can be easy to underestimate the sort of emotional power. That's one of the things I love about it. Like, to me, a Romance novel is not unlike a formal poem, like a sonnet that has very strict rules. And the joy is partially in the hands of a really talented writer, it's what can they do within this well-trodden set of rules that nobody's ever done before? If you haven't tried it yet, try at least one. Like, do yourself a favor and just try it. [Laughs]

Adwoa Adusei Listeners, to help you start on your Romance journey, we’ve created a book list of books that will ease you into the genre. There’s something there for everyone, from Paranormal to Historical to Rom-Com. You can read the full list, and a transcript of this episode at BKLYN Library [dot] org [slash] podcasts. 

Ali Post Borrowed is brought to you by Brooklyn Public Library. This episode was written by me, Adwoa Adusei, and Virginia Marshall, and hosted by me and Adwoa. Virginia Marshall produced the episode, with help from Fritzi Bodenheimer, Robin Lester Kenton, and Jennifer Proffitt. Our music composer is Billy Libby. Meryl Friedman designed our logo. 

Adwoa Adusei Brooklyn Public Library relies on the support of individuals for many of its most critical programs and services. To make a gift, please go to BKLYN Library [dot] org [slash] donate.  

Ali Post And, you can catch more of Nichole Perkins on her podcast “This is Good For You." Special thanks to Jennifer Proffitt and her book club for inviting us to listen in. You can follow Jenn and Heather as they discuss romance in books, TV, and movies by subscribing to their podcast, called “Ship Tease.” 

Adwoa Adusei Happy Valentine’s Day to all our listeners! Don't be shy, go pick up a Romance novel, and we'll be back in your ears soon.