Diversity…
The Brits must hate me. Despite their parasitic royal family, I’ve loved them since I read Dame Agatha’s mysteries as a young lad, but, like other writers before her and during her time, diversity, if present, was a bit skewed in her novels, to say the least. I also noticed this in the H. Rider Haggard stories. In fact, non-white men and women were often cast as either servants or villains as they were in real life in the old British Empire.
It was difficult to reconcile all that with the diversity I saw growing up in California. I didn’t consider African, Asian, and Hispanic Americans as separate groups. They were just my fellow Americans—neighbors, business owners, community leaders, and family friends or relatives. I’d wager that California’s diversity still leads all the states today and is what made the great state’s economic engine the best in the US (and ranked high in the world compared to entire countries).
While it might be contrary to what the anti-cultural-appropriation folks would like, I’ve always included diversity in my novels. That came naturally. I’ve never said to myself, “Steve, you need to add some diversity.” I say, “In my experience, what does a character’s background have to be to make the best story?”
Thus my NYPD homicide detectives are a Chinese-American and Puerto Rican (the latter are already Americans), intentionally playing counter to the Irish-cop stereotype (even though I have Irish blood). Castilblanco’s dancing ability mirrors two fellow students I knew in college; Chen’s stoic demeanor mirrors a Chinese girl I knew in high school (like Chen, there were moments when the stoicism took a break). They often work with a big black ME modeled after Vince Wilfork, the ex-Patriots nose tackle, who I admired more than the prima donna, Tom Brady.
I first intentionally added diversity, though, when I started the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series with Rembrandt’s Angel. While Esther and Bastiann are twenty-first century versions of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, putting Christie’s two famous detectives together like I’d wanted to do since I’d read her novels, I added diversity where it seemed appropriate in what’s traditionally been a lily-white England. Admittedly, most of this is achieved with immigrants from ex-British colonies—India, Jamaica, and Hong Kong, in particular—and featuring Ambreesh Singh, the brilliant MI5 techie; Harry James, a member of Esther’s art gallery staff and accomplished musician; and three accomplished Chinese artists who are Hong Kong refugees.
That still didn’t satisfy me, so when I introduced Inspector Steve Morgan in Book Eight, The Klimt Connection, I thought it was logical to give him a black girlfriend, the athletic Kanzi Kimachu, whose family origins are in Kenya. Her immediate family members now are as British as the royal family, although even the latter has added some diversity recently, despite some of their obvious resistance.
This might make you wonder: Why bother with a character’s family history or origins? I’m not championing Ancestry.com here! (This blog and website are commercial-free.) But, like it or not, family history and origins can influence how people act in real life. Because fiction has to seem real, it must contain diversity.
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Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
