Last week I had the pleasure of having dinner with a friend; I’ve known Linda Barnes for a long time, but this was the longest time we’ve actually spent together.

Like many convention/author-reader friendships, we never really spent a lot of time together; chatted at a signing or a convention, maybe, talked by email. I recently did a short interview for her for Library Journal – my one professional gig – which talked about her newest book and Colombia and Carlotta’s love life. During our email conversation she said she was coming to Seattle on tour, so we toodled around with her schedule and had dinner. Alas, Linda’s schedule was fine. It was Vicente FOX’s schedule that sucked; yes, the President of Mexico was in Seattle AT the same hotel ON the same day. You want frustration? Frustration is sitting in a taxi in downtown Seattle at 5 o’clock on a Wednesday night. You’re 3 blocks from the restaurant, the cab picked you up VERY early and because the police have decided to block traffic, you sit for 15 minutes, watcing the meter tick…tick…tick. The frustration si not about the money; it’s about the fact that I can’t walk the damn 3 blocks and if there’s something more numbing than sitting in traffic…argh. But hey, I was still early.

So we had this wonderful Tom Douglas dinner (TD is to Seattle what Emeril is to New Orleans, but without the pretension and the fake charm) and two hours of wonderful conversation. And exactly as I’d hope for with such a friend, we talked about EVERYTHING. We didn’t exactly solve global warming or anything, but we ranged from boring seders to authors to traveling to reading to oh who knows.

One of the things we chewed over was the whole gender and mystery puzzle; the endless discussion many of us have been part of for years, about how women are the primarily audience for mystery, and why it is that women read more than men. And we got into the whole who reads thing, and the apparent reality that while women will read female and male writers, men don’t tend to read female writers. This is a vast over-simplification, mind you, so please don’t write to me and tell me you’re a guy and you read women writers. But you’re familiar with the studies, right?

When, years ago, I worked on the Northwest Book Fest, a major issue for the organizers was, apparently, how to get men to the event. Frankly, I admit that I never worried about that; my small bit at the event was putting together mystery programming (aka 2 panels) and I was far more focused on finding out who would have books out at the right time and would be touring or willing to schlep to Seattle and with only 2 panels, how the hell to devise panels that weren’t the most basic boring discussion – which, when you have hugely different talents, is sometimes the only option. Believe it or not, devising a convention’s worth of program is in some ways easier than coming up with 2 panels. That will be interesting enough that people will go (and go they did. How the Book Fest shafted me and mystery readers is another whole story). But I didn’t care who my audience was; I didn’t have to, I guess. I knew people would come if I had good writers talking about interesting things and if the audience was female, fine. (As I recall, this “gender gap” was one of the reasons that the NWBF had an entire “outdoor writing” track. Something that so does not appeal to me on any level, but it was, as I recall, an attempt to draw men to the event. I admit to asking about it one year because I was trying for something like the third time to get the Powers That Be to give me 4 panels instead of two, based on the popularity of mystery fiction. And if poetry and outdoor writing could have a whole track, couldn’t I have just a couple more panels? After the fourth year, and after creating panels that were SRO every year and seeing them in the smallest stage (and at the end of the day – the lousiest time of day for BOTH panels) I just gave up. Okay, there was also the fact that the BF moved their offices to an inaccessible location and didn’t get why it was a WRONG thing to do, but never mind that.)

But apparently it’s a truism that women buy most of the books – at least in mystery. And we all know that there are writers of both genders in mystery. I read lots of men and lots of women. Many women do. Apparently, however, men don’t tend to read books by women in nearly the numbers that women read books by men.

Why not? I mean even my sweetie Stu tends to read books by men. I mean if it came right down to it, if I were to list my favorite authors, there would be more women than men, but gods.

Is there a gender thing in fiction? Is women’s writing different from that of men? I mean, is it that women write about relationships and men write action, or is that just a lame generalization? Women read thrillers and men read thrillers. Women read cozies. Women WRITE cozies. Few men seem to read OR write in that end of the genre spectrum. I mean I don’t go to Malice Domestic, but it’s my sense that the number of men who attend is in the single digits, yes?

Is it that women write about women? But so? But why don’t men want to read about women? We read about them, darn it. And yeah, I know that Bill Clinton reads Sara Paretsky but…how many guys read Charlaine Harris? Nancy Pickard? Marcia Muller? Margaret Maron? Laura Lippman? When was the last time you saw a man on a bus, or on the subway or at lunch with a Linda Barnes book in his hands?

As Linda and I talked, we admitted that of course we simply didn’t know why some authors were popular and some not; why Parker sells in the gazillions and no one knows who Jim Sallis is. And we weren’t even really talking about talent (ok, except that Sallis writes superbly) but just about popularity. The click; why DID Dan Brown click? Why DOES Evanovich sell so well, when there are other authors who write – as well? Write similar characters and topics? Why some authors simply click and others don’t, just baffles me. But I DO admit to a bit of cattiness. Before I relate it, I want to say here and now that I admire and like Sue Grafton. She’s a really neat person, generous to readers, friendly. She’s successful and I’m really happy about that. That I stopped reading her books a while ago is more a comment on my taste than her ability; I just stopped liking Kinsey Milhone. So please understand that I was not putting down, or even trying to be mean about Sue when in talking about how well her books sell, I said to Linda “well, Kinsey’s a man.”

And I was being mostly facetious. Mostly because of course Kinsey Milhone is female. But, but here’s the thing. That whole “women write about relationships” thing? Kinsey doesn’t DO female stuff. Assuming, if I can, that some of those reasons women read women is to read about friendships, and relationships and love, and falling in and out of love, and how boyfriends react when you’re in danger and how mothers gripe about lack of grandchildren and phone conversations and food and clothes and sisters. Kinsey has none of that. She doesn’t have much of a life that isn’t work. Keeping in mind that as I say, Is topped a while ago, but she’s uninterested in a social life. She’s uninterested in having friends and finds friendship to be a lot of work, and puzzling. Her closest friend is her landlord. She has few possessions, few belongings and has no interest in learning to cook, doesn’t read books, doesn’t go to movies, seldom hangs out with friends. Isn't this all very GUY? Work is what matters, everything else is trivia.

As I say, I know that this is all generalizing. But I tired of Kinsey when after reading for about the 15th time that she cut her hair with nail scissors. I didn’t think she should go to a beauty parlor (yuck). She doesn’t even have to go to Great Cuts or Whatever cheap joint is around – though I don’t see why a $10 trim would kill her. It’s that she wouldn’t even go buy a friggin pair of grown-up damn scissors. Fiskars – you can get ‘em at Walgreens, I think. Same with that awful damn dress – I’m not saying she needed to hit Rodeo Drive, but dear gods, there are decent comfortable clothes out there. No one’s going to make you wear pink or taffeta or push-up bras. There are consignment shops, and catalogue houses like LL Bean and Deva which won’t make you into Barbie. But Kinsey’s refusal to even think about anything that wasn’t whatever client-based things he was doing got boring. I like to understand and get to know people when I read fiction – I like watching Sharon McCone find what’s important in life, and to walk along the river, and try a new wine. I like watching Sookie Stackhouse as people assume she’s a dumb bimbo and to see her outsmart them and find her own way. Yes I like the story, the setting, the suspense and the mystery, but it’s the people stuff that draws me as a reader. “Guy” books have less of what I like. They have more “action” – more details about armament, and more excitement. More face-offs with bad guys and more loudness. Not that I would want to know what kind of shoes he’s wearing (I’ve made a new rule, by the way that I won’t read a book if the protagonist feels in necessary to mention the brand name of her shoes. Except maybe if their Doc Martens. Or Birkenstocks.) But guys in mysteries seldom call their friends and say “what should I do?” or stop and talk to a co-worker, or check up on their mom if she’s sick. I KNOW Sharon McCone. I KNOW Hy Ripinski. I know and GET Carlotta’s attraction to Sam.

So I’m just wondering if girl books and boy books are different still and why. As I say, without question, there are major exceptions to this overly simplistic discussion – the fact is that last night I started reading an Ian Rankin book, but it was pretty soon after finishing the latest Janet LaPierre. But if it’s true as it seems to be that women will read either gender and men tend not to, why DON’T men read women writers? Are we really that different?