Where Have All the Faces Gone?

A Literal Literary Loser Laments the Losses

Why, if the self-help books urge us to look forward, not backwards, are all works (or at least, the covers) of fiction obsessed with people’s backs - especially women’s?

Go to the bookstore and check out the Women’s Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance, Chick Lit aisles. Backs, backs, and more backs, as far as the eye can see.

We’ve got the backs of society women, the backs of farm women, the backs of orphaned children, and the backs of war refugees.

I admit, I’m part of the problem. My July 2020 HarperCollins release, “The Nesting Dolls,” features the backs of a woman and two children as they peer into the wilds of (presumably) 1930s Siberian banishment. In the story, my heroine, Daria, has two daughters - and a husband. In the image, one of the children appears to be a boy - and the husband is nowhere to be seen. Guess you make a cover with the stock art you have, not the stock art you wish you had….

So what’s with the all backs, all the time trend?

My first, practical guess is that, with their backs turned, you don’t have to pay the models as much? (Or, at all?) Following the money is always a good assumption.

My second, more philosophical guess is that publishers believe by obscuring the faces of their subjects, readers can easier project themselves into the stories. (I, personally, prefer to read about characters as different from me as possible. Why would I want to read about someone exactly like myself? I’m already stuck with myself on a daily basis. I want to opportunity to escape periodically.)

But am I the only one who finds all the endless back porn covers to be sort of boring? Not to mention, difficult to tell apart, which makes it difficult to remember if I’ve already read this particular back’s adventure, or was that the other, similar looking back?

I wrote last month about how I’m not exactly sure what a cover reveal is yet. And I’m still working on that part. (I don’t have a plan yet, but I do have a date for it - June 15, so stay tuned for more details!)

I can make you a promise, though: When I reveal my cover, it will not feature a woman’s back. I promise you a whole woman, with a front, and everything!

Whenever my husband or sons disagree with me these days, my 15 year old daughter pipes up, “Are you trying to silence women’s voices?” (She does the same when I disagree with her.)

I am not trying to silence women’s voices, and I am not trying to obscure women’s faces. I support all women’s body parts! And I will be featuring several on the cover of “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region.”

Join me in June to see which ones those will be! And, in the meantime, let me know how you feel about all those backs at the bookstore, in the Comments below!