2 Quotes by John Freeman

Publishing has no onus to be representative, but a fourth of America lives in conditions close to or below the poverty line. Think about the last time you read a novel in which someone went to cash a benefit check or paid for food in food stamps, or got off a double-shift at a retail store and were having their home or car repossessed. These are the conditions in which much of this country lives and it is a dereliction of capability (not duty) to ignore it in literature.

I think writing in general can help us deal with anything we fear, anything which troubles us, anything that makes us angry or moves us. In fact, in most cases, writing has to engage with these feelings—the lack of engagement you find in parts of American writing is a form of imperialism turned inward. We don’t see the poor, the abject, the destitute in fiction and literature nearly as much as we should.