From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder To: Beth Fremont Sent: Wed, 08/18/1999 9:06 AM Subject: Where are you?
This novel opens with an unusual form of point of view: an email exchange. Embedded in this first chapter are allusions to the era in which the novel is set. How does the email "POV" and the allusions help contextualize the story?
Once upon a time,
The beginning of this novel opens with an invocation to the fairy tale: "Once upon a time." What does an opening line like this one do to your expectations for the novel?
As sociologists, we study and teach about women’s devalued place in society. But the stigma against the romance genre is so strong that even our background as scholars in the sociology of gender wasn’t enough to inoculate us against the stigma. If anyone was going to know better, it should have been us.
Greyson and Lois establish the pervasive and deeply ingrained pejorative attitude toward the popular romance novel. Admit their own assumptions about the genre mirrored that of our culture.
By Joanna Gregson and Jen Lois
Greyson and Lois are sociologists conducting research on attitudes toward authors of popular romance novels.