How do you want to be seen?

On the politics of the author photo, Part II

Yesterday Beowulf forwarded along the dreaded link. It contained 250 or so photographs of me taken mostly in his studio in the East Village last week, with me in bare feet always just out of frame. In some of them I’m wearing a blazer. In some, I’m wearing a soft sweater. In a few I’m wearing a dress. I put makeup on, an unusual move for me. I got a haircut right before. I was as ready as I was going to be.

A few minutes passed before I was able to steel myself enough to take a look.

I can’t show them to you right now, as they are proofs for approval only. But to some friends I have characterized them with captions like “I’m so confident I’m wearing the exact same outfit I wore in my author photo nine years ago,” and “Now I’m confident, but in a stairwell,” and “Saint Katherine of Perpetual Calvinism,” and “I will poke out your eye with my grandmother’s engagement ring and I will laugh about it.”

I sent the link to my friend Alex, who in addition to being a historian, climate scholar, SCUBA diver, yacht racer, and all-purpose international man of mystery, is also a photographer. Some hours later, he returned to me a spreadsheet that carefully ranked his favorites, complete with thoughts on which image would work best for which event. (Alex has big plans for me. “This one would be perfect if you ever speak at BU again.” “This one, for a profile in Town and Country.” “This one, for when you win the Nobel Prize in Literature.”) And then, a discussion ensued.

“A woman’s photo needs to do something a man’s does not,” he said.

(This is not one of the recent author photos. This is a rejected outtake from 2010, when my friend Laura photographed me on my porch for my second novel, The House of Velvet and Glass. This picture is not doing the work we need it to do. Why not?)

While Beowulf was photographing me, he kept urging me to be “warmer.” And looking at the proofs, I see why. In trying to look simultaneously brilliant, approachable, authoritative, trustworthy, serious, and attractive, all while not looking like I could use a bite to eat or am suffering from hookworms, the overall effect leaves something to be desired.

“I am a total bitch” does not sell books.

I tried to be warmer. I thought of warm things.

The point of an author photo is not entirely to look like me. “Me” is messy. “Me” doesn’t wear lipstick very often. Generally, “me” is found in manatee pajama pants and an oversized Columbia sweatshirt with ratty cuffs and, lately, sporting reading glasses I bought at a bookstore. “Me” is often warm, I hope, but not always.

But instead I had to look like “Katherine Howe.” Who is brilliant, approachable, etc. etc. blahdoo blahdoo and also deserves that fellowship, and would be a good candidate for that residency, and the perfect person to interview for that thing about witches/pirates/the Gilded Age, and who would be a great partner if you publish her book, and who will write a good book that you will enjoy if you buy it.

(Hookworms?)

“The ones I ranked high do look warm,” Alex texted me. “And you can’t look too warm. A sense that you can cut off someone’s head with a pen, if you wish, should be somewhere in there.”

Easy.

Alex prefers the ones of me in a sweater. (Which is why I’m illustrating this post with me in a sweater, albeit a sweater from fourteen years ago.)

“I feel like the blazer is more serious,” I texted him.

“The blazer is too serious,” he said. “You did the blazer. It’s in your internet footprint for the last 10 years.” He thinks I can afford to look relaxed.

But can I? What is at stake, for women, when we relinquish a hard-won perception of seriousness? On Beowulf’s landing page he includes a photograph that he took of Oprah. She is smiling with her hands on her hips in a fabulous purple dress with ruffles at the sleeves.

I wonder what Oprah looks like when she doesn’t look like “Oprah.”

(I used this one for awhile. I have smile lines now, around my eyes and nose. And I resumed wearing all my left earrings. I can see the time unfolding across my face, as we all can, eventually. If we are lucky.)

So what’s next?

This weekend, I’ll be up at the Exeter Lit Fest, on a panel in the afternoon about New England literature. Click through to see the current author photo for Andre Dubus III, keynote speaker and literary lion of northern New England. In his photo he looks weathered but handsome. Liony. An old school model of “literary,” from the days when rewardable prose was described as “muscular.” Approachable? No, actually. Handsomely interrupted, perhaps.

Then, a bit of a lull in book events until the April 30 launch of The Penguin Book of Pirates with the Newport Historical Society in Newport, RI, followed quickly on May 2 with an event for Rachel Rueckert at RJ Julia Bookstore in Madison, CT. Then, in spring, a flurry of festivals as I push my third book in seven months out into the world.