Betes Noires

It’s a dirty little secret shared by almost every author I know. Even authors regularly hitting the NYT have one. They’re given different names—betes noires, doppelgangers, nemeses. What they are is the particular fellow writer who becomes the burr beneath our skin or the red flag waved in front of our inner bull. They are the lightening rod for all the injustices and neglect we suffer (or think we suffer) as authors. They are, to put it more bluntly, the focus of our all our petty jealousies.

To be most effective, an author’s bete noire needs to have first been published at the same time as our author. But while they might have started off at the same point, our author soon sees her bete noire pull ahead. She gets a bigger print run, a dream advertising campaign. Or maybe her books ride to popularity on a plethora of tasteless hot sex or blatant appeals to the resurgence of American militarism. For whatever reason, the bete noire soon outsells our author (in the case of a NYT-selling author, that can mean just hitting higher or staying longer on the list). And—here’s the clincher—the bete noire’s books are BAD. After all, if her success were deserved, then our author would applaud it. Instead, our author is left chagrined, confused, and outraged. Why are her awful books selling while my books—which are oh-so-much better—are not?

This may be just a female thing; I don’t know. But the tendency is so pervasive I suspect it must serve some purpose. I know I had a bete noire when I was writing romances. Since I’ve left the genre, her success (ill-deserved, of course!) has lost its power to sting (her career is also on a long, steady decline, but I’m not going to crow about that). Do I have a new bete noire? Yes. Am I going to tell you who it is?

No.