THE PUSH Comes to Shove

Every few years it happens. It seems like there’s only one book that people are talking about. Not because they’ve read it, but because they’ve read about it. Even before it’s published, it’s a comet. It’s a unicorn. But if you’re a writer with a book coming out in the same season, or someone slogging through the trenches on a book that isn’t finished, or even someone who might be struggling to just begin, then that book is the Bogeyman. 

This year—if you don’t already know; if you aren’t already shaking in your boots—that book is The Push.

The Push is billed as a psychological thriller about motherhood. It sold for millions of dollars to publishers in the US, UK and Canada, with translation rights for another 34 countries. Film rights went in a nine-way auction to David Heyman of Heyman Films (of Harry Potter and A Marriage Story fame). The reviews—New York Times, LA Times, The Guardian—are effusive, and the book is, predictably, everywhere. Oh, and did I mention that its author, Ashley Audrain, is a former publicity director at Penguin Canada turned stay-at-home mom? The Push is her first book. 

“Well, thanks a lot,” you might be saying now.

“I’ve been working on this book for 

Five Years

Five Months

Five Minutes

and I’m not even sure I’m going to get a 

Deal

Agent

Festival invitation

Review.

How am I supposed to compete with The Push?” 

Well, you can’t. 

Yes, that’s a harsh reality to face, no matter where you are in the process of writing or promoting your story. And whether you’re a seasoned author or just getting your feet wet on your first submission, it stings. Of course it does! Because the playing field isn’t level. There will always be books that get more money and attention than other books. And there will always be authors who seem to have been touched by Midas—maybe even before they touched a keyboard.

If you are not a white, blond, beautiful, able-bodied, heterosexual young mother, you may have noticed that Ashley Audrain appears to be a white, blond, beautiful, able-bodied, heterosexual young mother. The sort of person that the world of publishing and entertainment (or, you know, just the world in general) finds it easy to get behind. Now, I believe that it’s our job as readers as well as writers to demand that the publishers offer us more than the same old pale palette of authors and perspectives and stories. And thanks to the unrelenting work of persistent individuals and some innovative organizations—such as, in Canada, The Festival of Literary Diversity and BIPOC in Publishing—publishers are starting to change what they offer, support and promote. But it’s not happening fast enough, because we’re really behind and we have a lot of ground to cover. And The Push isn’t going to help make up the difference. That’s a fact.

But here’s another. 

The Push isn’t going to affect your specific book’s success or your trajectory as a writer. Unless you let it get to you. Unless it leaves you so discouraged that you can’t tell your stories, or share them after you’ve told them. That would be the shame.

Marketing for The Push vs. Marketing for All Other Books Ever*
(*secret publishers’ documents)

Is The Push getting metric shit-tonnes of attention? Yes! Does it “deserve” it? Maybe. But holding your network of connections, or your publicity budget, or—for God’s sake, please no!—your advance up against this one book and this one writer, isn’t going to help. No one who knows anything about publishing or life is going to expect your book to meet The Push’s momentum. It can’t. It hasn’t been shot out of the same sort of cannon. Let me say it again: you cannot compete with that. 

But do we compete with Stephen King? Or Haruki Murakami? Or Elena Ferrante? No! They’re sensations. But we can enjoy them as readers. Sometimes our readers will also be their readers, and their readers might be ours. Does it mean that you, or I, or insert basically any other writer you know shouldn’t do his or her own beautiful thing? Hell no! What kind of world would it be if we only had access to King, Smith, and Ferrante? Yes, their stories are great. But it doesn’t mean they're enough.

I can guarantee you that The Push does not have the things that your story does, just as your story doesn't have what The Push does. That’s the thing about art and artists and humans—they’re originals. Not interchangeable. As writers, we make projects that are unique to us. Personal to us. The Push is Audrain’s personal project. What’s yours?

Your beautiful story is crafted from your beautiful mind. And sharing that with enthusiasm and—where possible—joy, is going to bring you connections that are particular to you. An audience that wants to read what you wrote. Yes, joy can be hard to find when it looks like someone or everyone has it easier. I know that. 

(I have been there. Didn’t take the scenic route. Will go there again.)

But if you live there, then The Push becomes much bigger than the publishing juggernaut that it already is. It becomes your creative Bogeyman. And it’s going to negatively affect your art and the possibilities for making and sharing it. 

The late Paul Quarrington (novelist, memoirist, musician) performed a playful take on the idea of literary dominance with his band Pork Belly Futures. “Fictional World” purports to be a man’s lament about his lover paying more attention to books than to him. However, watching Quarrington—Governor General’s Award and Leacock Winner, but not-quite-household-name—stand on stage while the band launched into the song’s opening line “Michael Ondaatje has stolen my girl…” was to participate in a multi-layered, in-joke.

By then, Quarrington had struggled with a darker variety of creative envy, and suffered its more damaging effects. I’ll never forget the interview he gave in 2008, just as his novel The Ravine was coming out. 

“Writing is a very easy profession to become bitter about. You don’t get raises; you don’t get to be called a senior writer after 10 years; and when you read about so-and-so getting a $400,000 advance from Viking in the States, it’s easy to say, ‘Well, fuck him.’ But bitter is bad. It’s the writer’s black lung disease. I kind of had to work my way out of that before I destroyed a lot of things.”

We should all have this posted on our walls. Or maybe tattooed on our arms—on the inside, where we can see it. 

So, my writing friends, wherever you are on your current project—concocting, slogging or promoting—here’s my advice. Put The Push away. Or read it and enjoy it (or hate it) and then put it away. Look around at all the stories that exist in the world, all the beloved books that are on your shelf. Then look inside your imagination, and say what only you can say.