‘Porn report’ defames acclaimed author
“Fates and Furies” was Number 49. You should be insulted.
Most of the literary works listed in the so-called “Porn in School Report” would insult any reader who appreciates serious literature, but defaming Lauren Groff ’s novel as pornography ought to particularly offensive to Floridians. She writes about us.
The Gainesville writer, a Guggenheim fellow with a slew of literary awards on her résumé, weaves her stories out of the “damp, dense tangle” of life in Florida. Her characters deal with snakes, sinkholes, hurricanes, palmetto bugs, one panther and the “queer dank musk of deep-country Florida.” (Perhaps her use of “queer” set off the censors’ porn alarm.)
Groff ’s description of Florida as “an Eden of dangerous things,” ought to be appended to the “Welcome to Florida” sign at the Georgia state line.
But the Florida Citizens Alliance, whose self-appointed arbiters skulk around school libraries sniffing for the merest whiff of sexual or racial references, didn’t consider literary value as they compiled their hit list. They’ve adopted a book-banning rubric that doesn’t differentiate between Hustler and The New Yorker, which has published nine short stories and a novella by Groff over the past decade.
The “porn report” listed 58 books to be banished from schools, including acclaimed works by Groff, Sherman Alexie, Khaled Hosseini, Jodi Picoult, Judy Blume, Sally Rooney, Arundhati Roy and Jonathan Foer.
Number 34, the beloved children’s book “Everywhere Babies” by Susan Meyers (illustrated by Marla Frazee), was such a shocking addition that the Washington Post reported this latest Florida folly on the front page. Educators have begun to wonder if Ray Bradbury had been vacationing in Florida when he wrote “Fahrenheit 451.”
For Floridians living in Ron DeSantis’ Brave New World, at least those whose literary interests aren’t limited to 280-character tweets, disparaging Lauren Groff as an author of “indecent and obscene material,” was both indecent and obscene.
Literary critics seemed to have missed the pornographic themes when “Fates and Furies” was published in 2015. But let’s check again to be sure:
The New York Times called Groff ’s third book, “a novel of extraordinary and genuine complexity.”
Los Angeles Times called the writing “audacious and gorgeous.”
Nor did the Washington Post review suggest that Groff had gone on a porn bender. The Post described “a clear-theground triumph. Spanning decades, oceans and the whole economic scale from indigence to opulence, this novel holds within its grasp the story of one extraordinary marriage.”
However unintentional, The Florida Citizens Alliance, actually enhanced Groff ’s standing in the American literary canon, when the gang of frothing-at-the-mouth book burners attached the same porn smear to a pair of novels written by Toni Morrison, one of America’s most honored authors, winner of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
For a writer, even when pursed by a mob of Trumpsters, Morrison’s not bad company.
This censorship crusade is obviously a contrivance of cranks. Once, they would be ignored. But this stuff thrives lately in a Florida ruled by a political opportunist, happy to exploit parental frustrations spawned by the pandemic.
Ron DeSantis sided with the loud and angry activists who packed school board meetings to rage against mask mandates, vaccines and distance learning. He stoked more anger with downright dishonest claims that Florida school districts were “indoctrinating” students with critical race theory or were damaging heterosexual kids by encouraging homosexuality or gender transition.
DeSantis promised to “empower” disgruntled parents and in March signed legislation (HB 1467) giving activists considerable say over which books and teaching materials are deemed acceptable for public schools. He “empowered” a cabal of unelected book banners.
The flaw, of course, is that embracing some noisy faction’s puritanical demands automatically dismisses the more moderate sensibilities of the (quieter) majority.
But when a ruthless governor sides with the book banners, the books get banned.
Last week, the Walton County school superintendent announced that a districtwide search of school libraries had turned up 24 of the 58 books on the so-called “porn list.” The offending books were yanked.
The Alliance has sent the same list to every school district in Florida, where the new parental empowerment law — never mind that it only seems to empower rightwing zealots — will cause risk-adverse school administrators to remove many more books.
Lauren Groff responded to the ban with a tweet: “If any public school students in Walton County want to sneak my book onto their school library shelves, I’d be glad to mail you a copy.”
After that, the Florida Citizens Alliance may ban her Twitter feed.