Registering a complaint: a title trend that merits some questioning

John Cleese registering a complaint

It started with The Time Traveler's Wife, I think. I didn't read it, so my comments here have nothing to do with its merits or flaws. I just remember being struck by the title. Well, it must have been a success. In the past few years I've noticed a plethora of titles in similar form: The Hangman's Daughter, etc. Lately I feel as if every third title is The [insert profession here] niece, lover, daughter, helper, etc. On one hand, I accept that this is probably just publisher's capitalizing on a successful marketing strategy.

On the other hand, I have a complaint.


Look, publishers: women already disappear into history more easily than men

because we (traditionally) change our last names.

We're harder to track and, as Broadway success Hamilton reminds us, it's easy for us to be "eras[ed] from the narrative." So, stop creating book titles --aimed at women readers-- where you suggest (intentionally or not) that the only reason the primary female characters are worth reading about is because of their connection to an interesting, powerful, infamous, or otherwise noteworthy man.

I want to see titles like The Scientist - wherein said scientist has all the parts and pieces associated with being female. Would books with titles like The Seamstress's Husband be bestsellers? If not, then we shouldn't support their counterparts. Now, I know that publisher's probably didn't mean anything by this trend. I'm not criticizing authors for capitalizing on it or readers for enjoying titles like The Macaroni Factory Worker's Twin Sister (yeah, I made that one up). But I do think this trend merits conversation especially in a world where misogyny seems to be alive and well and where the world feminist still garners its share of mistrust. Readers are intelligent -- let's hook them with titles that salute female intelligence, achievement and savvy, rather than suggesting that women are important first and foremost because of their association with or connection to men. Please don't get me wrong, gentlemen - I'm not downgrading your value or your importance and I value my connections as a wife, a sister, etc. - but these are books for women, usually written by women writers. So, don't we deserve to be the title character in name as well as in fact?