Tayari's Blog: And they say chivalry is dead!

Here's the situation. My knight in shining armor is an intense scholar of African American literature. I mean, the man knows all there is to know about any work of imagination penned by any African-descened author on these teeming shores. A Ph.D., he has written beaucoup articles, a couple of books, and has won many a show-down belly-up to the bars of conference-hotels. In other words, he's not a person you should mess around with if you haven't done your homework.

I like that in a person.

Anyway, Knight has endured conversations with an idiot or two who have dismissed Leaving Atlanta as a "cute little book" about the Atlanta Child Murders. (Who knew child murder could be cute!) Short version: he ain't gonna stand for it. I don't think that Knight and the offenders will actually come to blows, but his ambition is to save my honor by showing the world once and for all that Tayari Jones is a SERIOUS writer.

And it's only logical, since I am just that.

But I would advise him not to get deported over the issue.

You see, here's my position on the matter.

My work is pretty accessible. A woman to whom I gave a copy of Leaving Atlanta said to me: "Is this a book people can read?" I was happy to say, "Of course."

I don't want to write a book that my sister can't read.

There are people out there who think that a work can't be readable and even (gasp) a little fun and still be literary. But really, I can't get too worked up about that.

I write to make a record of all that I know and all that I have seen. A mentor of mine said to me: The world is going crazy. Write all you can, so when someone comes to survey the wreckage of our society, they can look at our books and see what the hell happened.

And that's all I am trying to do.