Love thrillers but tired of the genre being dominated by stories about brutalized women? You’re not alone. A newly launched honor is set to celebrate books where “no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped, or murdered,” The Guardian reports.
The Staunch Book Prize is headed by author and screenwriter Bridget Lawless. “As violence against women in fiction reaches a ridiculous high, the Staunch book prize invites thriller writers to keep us on the edge of our seats without resorting to the same old clichés — particularly female characters who are sexually assaulted (however ‘necessary to the plot’), or done away with (however ingeniously),” she writes on the prize’s website.
Inspired to launch the prize after noticing how many films at last year’s BAFTAs relied on rape as a plot device, Lawless determined it was “way past time for something more original.” She explained, “I thought, I can do one small thing. I thought I’d start with books. They are a source for so much material, and if I can have a tiny bit of influence there, it will help. There are so many books in which women are raped or murdered for an investigator or hero to show off his skills … This is about writers coming up with stories that don’t need to rely on sexual violence … Is there no other story?”
Lawless suggested that the “violence happening to women in books, films, and television … echoes, exaggerates, fetishizes, and normalizes what happens to women in the real world.”
It’s important to recognize — and Lawless does — that “not all thrillers depicting crimes against women are gratuitous or exploitative.” Liane Moriarty’s “Big Little Lies” — and HBO’s adaptation of the book — come to mind as a counter-example. Also worth mentioning is the fact that violence against women is terrifyingly common in real life, and is rarely talked about. While Lawless acknowledges that good, thoughtful books tackle this topic, those books “are not for this prize,” she said. Accordingly, The Staunch Book Prize will disqualify any work that does not meet its criteria. Books that feature women being beaten, sexually assaulted, and/or murdered won’t be considered.
The honor is open “to stories across the thriller genre — crime, psychological, comedy, and mysteries — and to traditionally published, self-published, and not-yet-published works,” according to The Guardian.
The competition opens February 22 and the the winner will be announced on November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The winner will receive a £2,000 prize, which amounts to about $2,800 USD.
For more information about the prize, head over to its official website.
