Cultural Difference.
I am undergoing a period of doubt that has me very depressed. Maybe you can help me.
For the last four years, I´ve been trying to write professionally with hopes of eventual publication. I finished one novel, and I have three on the making. But I seem to tackle controversial subjects in the sense that certain things perfectly acceptable in my culture, clash with American sensitivities.
For example, in my latest novel, I try to recreate several family anecdotes, includingt he marriages of both my grandparents. My maternal grandparents were first cousins. My paternal grandfather was 38 when he married my fifteen-year-old grandmother. They were very happy despite their age difference. In the context of the novel (Latin America in the 40’s), there’s nothing objectionable about both unions. But I´m told no American agent (or publishing house for all that matters) would touch a first novel with such difficult subjects (cousin marriage and child bride). Is that so? Why are Mansfield Park and Louisa May Alcott’s Rose in Bloom (both dealing with cousin marriage) still read? What about GWTW? Ashley and Melanie were first cousins. Scarlett marries at 16, and her mother married at fifteen. Or is it a contemporary taboo?
By the way, my novel is a romantic suspense and I never write anything in contemporary settings.
I am undergoing a period of doubt that has me very depressed. Maybe you can help me.
For the last four years, I´ve been trying to write professionally with hopes of eventual publication. I finished one novel, and I have three on the making. But I seem to tackle controversial subjects in the sense that certain things perfectly acceptable in my culture, clash with American sensitivities.
For example, in my latest novel, I try to recreate several family anecdotes, includingt he marriages of both my grandparents. My maternal grandparents were first cousins. My paternal grandfather was 38 when he married my fifteen-year-old grandmother. They were very happy despite their age difference. In the context of the novel (Latin America in the 40’s), there’s nothing objectionable about both unions. But I´m told no American agent (or publishing house for all that matters) would touch a first novel with such difficult subjects (cousin marriage and child bride). Is that so? Why are Mansfield Park and Louisa May Alcott’s Rose in Bloom (both dealing with cousin marriage) still read? What about GWTW? Ashley and Melanie were first cousins. Scarlett marries at 16, and her mother married at fifteen. Or is it a contemporary taboo?
By the way, my novel is a romantic suspense and I never write anything in contemporary settings.
