Uncreated Conscience

MAGIC UNDER GLASS

Bloomsbury seems to be on everyone’s shit list right now, owing to the second time they’ve white-washed a cover. The first fiasco involved Justine Larbalestier‘s very excellent LIAR, which was thankfully rectified. But as Aja Romano pointed out, Larbalestier is an established author with an established online following–enough to warrant a change in cover. Poor Jaclyn Dolamore may not be so lucky.

I’ve written before about my reaction to LIAR’s white-washed cover, as well my distaste for minority “problem novels”. My feelings are pretty clear: I’d like to see a novel with a protagonist who is incidentally a minority (either a person of color or queer). I want the protagonist’s narrative to be informed by but not defined by their minority status. I want his/her narrative to stand alone from the “minority experience”.

Finding that in fiction is becoming less and less difficult, as is evidenced by Larbalestier’s LIAR and Dolamore’s MAGIC UNDER GLASS. It’s the covers that are something else.

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US cover of LIAR

All over the blogosphere and Twitterverse, there are opinions about Justine Larbalestier‘s book cover for her latest novel LIAR. LIAR is about a multiracial girl named Micah (her father is part black) who is a compulsive (possibly pathological) liar, but the cover features a white girl.

Now, I read the ARC of LIAR back in June and while I remarked on my preference for the Australian cover, I didn’t think much of the fact that the girl on the Bloomsbury one doesn’t accurately represent Micah. I did, but the thought went in one ear and then out the other. Why? Is it because I’m used to seeing white faces on book covers that I’ve disconnected the cover from the contents? Why didn’t the whitewashing of the girl piss me off?

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