Revealing Eden Wrap-Up -- Victoria Foyt Attempts Damage Control

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Also, epically long post here... brace yourselves.

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So... it's been over two years, but we've managed to slog our way through Revealing Eden, the first book in the Save the Pearls duology.  And for those of you who are wondering -- I have no plans at this time to spork the second book, Adapting Eden.  It's possible I'll buckle down and read it for this blog in the future, but for now my brain needs some time to heal from the damage inflicted by the first book.

You can only do this so many times before

you actually start to hurt yourself

For now, let's have a look at the author behind this hot mess of a book, author/screenwriter/actress Victoria Foyt. 

Yes, you read that right -- Victoria Foyt is an actress and screenwriter, and even has her own IMDb page (though that's not saying much, since anyone with two seconds of screen time in a film can get an IMDb page).  She's had roles in Venice/Venice, Babyfever, Last Summer at the Hamptons, Deja Vu, Random Acts, and Going Shopping, and wrote or co-wrote all those films except Random Acts.  She also co-wrote Festival in Cannes and two short films, The Sweet Spot and It Don't Come Easy, and has one previous novel under her belt, The Virtual Life of Lexie Diamond, which actually has decent reviews on both Amazon and Goodreads, as well as from some legitimate book critics.

No, I hadn't heard of any of the above works before starting this blog, but my point is that Foyt actually managed to do some decent, non-controversial work before penning Revealing Eden.  Sure, it might have been forgettable work, but she at least seemed to be doing pretty okay for herself.  It's a shame she had to blow it all on a travesty like Eden.  I suppose one has to wonder whether it's better to be decent but forgotten, or legendary but terrible...

At any rate, much as Orson Scott Card rose to the plate to vehemently defend his homophobic rewrite of Hamlet, Foyt has similarly gone to bat for Revealing Eden, defending it from critics and insisting that she is not racist and, therefore, her precious book can't be racist in any way.  

From her website (which, notably, hasn't been updated since 2012):

I never felt beautiful as a young girl; I felt smart.  Mostly, I lived in my head, observing life from the inside out.  Once, in fifth grade, a boy shocked me into seeing how different I appeared.  I stood at the front of the school waiting for my mother when he leaned out the window of a departing bus and hurled an offensive epithet at me loud enough for most of the student body to hear.  His racist statement pointed out how different I was from the majority of white girls with straight blond hair and thin hips.  I'm half-Italian with wild curly hair, a curvy figure, big eyes and big lips, and I guess that frightened him.  I never have understood why appearance often matters more than character or intelligence, or why our differences inspire fear.  In Save the Pearls Part One REVEALING EDEN, I wanted to create a world where environmental chaos turns today's prevailing beauty standards upside down.  Eden is forced to discover her inner beauty, which finally opens her heart to true love.

Oh geez, so Eden Newman is an Author Avatar.  Yes, authors will put a bit of themselves in every one of their characters, but the fact that Eden is closely modeled after Foyt doesn't bode well.  Except for her physical appearance, it seems... but I do find it odd -- and telling -- that Foyt insists that physical appearance doesn't matter, yet she made Eden one of these "white girls with straight blond hair and thin hips."  Hmmmm...

Also, a grade-school bully calling you the n-word (or whatever word he chose, I don't know what he said) doesn't suddenly make you an expert on racism and its effects on people.  Maybe you would have benefited from actually talking to people of color or other minorities and researched racism yourself before trying to write about it, Foyt.  Just my thoughts.

Foyt also had a blog in the Huffington Post at one point, though less than a dozen entries seem to exist at the moment.  Three of the posts in particular seem to be directly about Revealing Eden and its resulting controversies, and while I won't quote them verbatim here, I'll include some of the juciest bits below.

From Interractional Relationships Seen Through Eyes of Young Adults:

I was wondering if there would be a backlash to the twist on racial issues I present in my new Young Adult novel, Save The Pearls, Part One, Revealing Eden.

This lack of objection does not come in a vacuum, either.  Literally, dozens of bloggers, mostly in the YA and romance book community, have reviewed the book... Before you assume that this post is merely a means to flaunt those rave reviews, pay attention to what exactly this lack of racial commentary might mean.

There are a few links to positive reviews that I omitted -- you can find them in the blog post, though a couple of them have since been taken down.  But Foyt seems to be operating by the logic of "no one's complained yet, so obviously there's no problem!"  Barring the fact that the book had only been out a few months at the time of this blog post (and coming from an indie publisher, it would take some time before the Internet at large got wind of it and began mocking it en masse), just because no one complains about a problem doesn't mean there's not a problem.  Nobody started complaining about Harvey Weinstein being a scumbag until recently; that doesn't mean he wasn't intimidating and assaulting women until recently, it only means that no one had the courage to complain.  The problem is still there even if no one is talking about it.

Also Foyt's addiction to commas seems to carry over from her fiction to her blog writing.  Seriously, she uses way too many commas.

So what does the lack of any racial outrage or puzzlement or fervor amidst the tremendous rain of positive reviews possibly say?

Three reviews does not "a tremendous rain" make.  And I'd say it possibly says that no one's going to care about an indie-published book by a marginally-successful screenwriter.  At least, they won't care until the Internet finds it and discovers just how rotten it is...

Conceivably, if the book had not reached the African-American community of readers, if such a category still exists, perhaps there might be some backlash.  The first young African-American reader who responded to me loved the book.  But then, she's the kind of free spirit who would eschew limiting herself to a single category.

....

IF SUCH A CATEGORY STILL EXISTS

WHAT

THE

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

Sorry, I've read this statement elsewhere and it still cheeses me off.  Yes, I get that Foyt might be trying to say that there shouldn't be racial boundaries in the reading world, but... in this day and age there are STILL those boundaries.  There are still categories for African-American fiction and Asian-American fiction and Hispanic fiction, and I have a feeling those categories are going to be around for a long time.  

Also, as badly worded as this statement is, it could easily be interpreted to mean "I don't think African-American people read books."  And yes, a lot of people have interpreted it to mean just that.  Foyt herself hasn't clarified, so I can't say for sure if she honestly believes that black people are too busy joining gangs and writing rap songs and making goofy Vine videos (though I guess they'd be YouTube videos now that Vine is dead) to actually sit down and read a book, or if she's just bad at writing.  There's evidence to back up both claims.

Or perhaps -- and this is what I hope -- the YA generation sees race in a way that is unique to them, unique in our history.  After all, they have arrived on the scene decades past the integration of schools and Jim Crow, even well past the days of The Cosby Show.

Soap-mouth-washing words that were forbidden in my youth now populate rap songs so often I wonder if, happily, they have lost their vile connotations.

Racism still exists today, Foyt, no matter how you might hope otherwise.  Also, those words have not yet lost their "vile connotations" -- just look at how quickly much of the Internet turned against PewDiePie after he used the n-word in one of his gaming streams.  They crop up in rap songs because it's widely accepted that black people can use words that are taboo to other groups.  African-Americans use the n-word all the time, just as white people throw the term "white trash" around as both an insult and even a term of twisted endearment, but that doesn't mean people of other ethnicities can use either term without consequence.

I am not naive enough to think we live in a world without racial issues.  In fact, I hope that my book will give those who have never experienced prejudice the opportunity to think about it in a new way, especially in terms of how our decaying environment one day may turn around the status quo.

You're certainly naive enough to think the world is going to embrace a white woman trying to comment on the plight of black people in the most unintentionally racist way imaginable.

From White, and in the Minority:

It's safe to say that, while on American soil, I have never suffered from prejudice.  That I haven't a clue what it would be like to be in the minority.  That as a white woman who was raised in a white community, I take many social or economic issues for granted.

Then why did you think you were qualified to write about prejudice?  Though I am relieved to see a hint of self-awareness here, at least...

Whites will remain a majority for some time.  However, the trend is clear, considering the aging white population, and the median age of Latinos in their peak fertility years.

There's no doubt about it, my progeny, if they are white, will be in the minority.  A lot has been said about what this change will mean to the economy.  In fact, if we depended on white births alone, the country would eventually be dead.

...aaaaaaaaand that hint of self-awareness is dead.  Seriously, did you even THINK before uttering this quote that sounds like it came from the Stormfront website?  (I am not linking that site, by the way...)  It sounds like you're trying to justify your book's atrocious existence by saying "look, it could REALLY happen, colored people are going to take over the country!"

In Revealing Eden, the depleted environment brings about extreme social change.  However we get there, eventually, the majority will be non-white, and the actors, models, teachers and politicians will reflect the new status quo.

Perceptions of beauty also will likely change.  Access to jobs and education will probably shift too.  And possibly, past cycles of prejudice may replay... with the tables turned?

This is sounding more and more like a white supremacist panicking that "political correctness" is going to result in racism against white people.  Stop it, Foyt.

I don't harbor fears that the existing minority races are waiting for the day they can take revenge on whites.  I hope that we are as a whole more evolved, and have learned vital lessons during the Civil Rights era.

However, I think it's important to imagine how you would feel if you wore the proverbial other shoe.  If you knew that, in your lifetime, things would change, would you act differently?...

I like to imagine a caramel-colored future where racial lines are indistinct and issues of prejudice a thing of the past.  Where inner beauty and character are valued over a pretty face.  Perhaps, because I'm in the majority, I can ponder such issues with what some may say is naivete.  I would call it hope.

Your words and your implications are saying two very different things here.  You may not have intended what you just said to come across as a racist shrieking that "colored people are taking over the world!" but that's sure what you sound like.  Sometimes, Foyt, it's better to keep your mouth shut than to say "I'm not racist, but..."  And yes, I would call it naivete -- because you're naive enough to think that you're at all qualified to make a commentary about race and prejudice when you a) haven't lived through it yourself and b) haven't studied it in-depth.

Also, racism is about a LOT more than beauty... but as you've just proven with Revealing Eden, beauty is apparently the be-all and end-all of the universe.  Given that you're an actress, perhaps that's your take on the world, but reality is much more complex than Hollywood would want us to believe.

From Judging a Book By Its Cover:

I would like to address the recent accusations of racism that have been aimed at my YA novel, Revealing Eden, Save the Pearls Part One.

Some have taken offense at the cover photo on the dust jacket of a blond, blue-eyed girl with her white face half covered in dark.  Without reading the novel or understanding the premise, some believe that the photo shows the girl in "blackface."  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Your white protagonist and every other white person in the novel paints themselves black to "pass" as black people.  HOW IS THIS NOT BLACKFACE?  Yes, the characters may not be doing it to mock black people, as blackface was used long ago, but still, it's blackface.  If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, calling it by any other name isn't going to change what it is.

First, consider that the basis of all prejudice is judging a book by its cover.  To condemn any book on the basis of its cover is hardly different than condemning a total stranger because of the color of his/her skin.  How can you critique or damn a book if you haven't read it?  This kind of blind attack is exactly what creates racism or condemned many progressives as communists in the Fifties.

"WAAAAAAAH judging my book by its terrible cover is as bad as being racist!  If you hate Revealing Eden you're racist!  If you judge books by their covers you're as bad as the McCarthyists who ruined lives during the Communist witch-hunts!"  Come on, Foyt... grow up and stop falling into hyperbolic accusations just because people pointed out how problematic your book's cover and Midnight Luster "blackface" concept are.

The use of blackface presents a mockery or travesty of African Americans' lives.  Eden Newman wishes to "Great Earth" that she had dark skin, not because she wants to make fun of people with dark skin, but because she admires their status and is jealous of the genetic advantage they offer against "The Heat."

Blackface is still blackface, no matter why it's used.  The main character in The Jazz Singer (both versions) dons blackface in a pivotal scene, but in the 1927 version it's part of the main character's journey to self-expression, while in the 1980 remake with Neil Diamond it's so he can sneak into a black nightclub without getting the tar beat out of him.  And in Tropic Thunder, Robert Downey Jr.'s character undergoes a medical procedure to dye his skin black in an extreme case of method acting.  It's STILL blackface, regardless of context, and it's still bound to get someone's shorts in a knot when it crops up in a work, which is why it has to be used VERY carefully... something Foyt didn't do.

Why are whites called Pearls, while blacks are called Coals?  Imagine a gritty, post-apocalyptic world where all that matters is survival.  What good would a pearl do you when luxury items have no use?  Coal has energy, fire, and real value.  It is durable and strong, not easily crushed like a pearl.  Pearl is a pejorative term here.  Coals are admired.  Coals oppose Pearls because they fear that those with light skin will add to a population unable to survive "The Heat," and drain meager resources.

I covered why this was so problematic in an earlier spork -- assuming gemstones will have no value in the future is ridiculous, after all, and "Pearl" has ALWAYS meant "something of great value" -- but I'd like to emphasize here that this retcon on the part of the author means NOTHING once the book has already been published.  You can say all you want after the fact to cover your butt, Foyt, but seeing as you left it out of the book, it does no good to scream "it's not like that!" now.  Next time either include your (flimsy) justification in the book proper, or (far more preferably) pick more sensible terms for your characters to throw around.

Also, your lousy justification is rendered moot by your own text, which states that "Coal" is an "incendiary racial slur" right in the first chapter.

Artists provoke to get their point across.  I abhor racism.  In Revealing Eden, I aimed to turn racism on its head in order to portray its horrors and its inevitable road to violence.  I believe that anyone who reads the novel will understand its strong stance against racism.

*coughcoughcough*  I read the whole thing, Foyt.  And the entire thing smacks of racism in and of itself.  Switching around the persecuted party does NOT a good critique of racism make, especially when you fall back on so many horrible and lazy racist stereotypes in the process.

And there is reason to support my belief when you consider that the novel has won five literary awards, including the Eric Hoffer Best Young Adult Novel 2012 (Eric Hoffer was a great humanitarian), or that Marianne Williamson called it on her Facebook page, "A fascinating story... for lovers of all ages!" or that dozens of reviewers from the San Francisco Book Review to Fresh Fiction to many book bloggers have embraced it with glowing reviews.

The Eric Hoffer award is widely known for being a "pay to win" award, if not an outright scam, and this link on a writer's forum hints that most, if not all, of the awards given to Revealing Eden are questionable at best, and "pay to win" at worst.

Also, Foyt, Fifty Shades of Grey, Twilight, and Me Before You have proven to the world that "popularity" does not necessarily equal "quality."  Just because people read it doesn't mean it's GOOD.  Or that it has an important message that shouldn't be questioned.

And if you ask if all these reviewers are white then consider that you have a racist point of view.

"If you think my book is bad you're automatically a racist!"  Grow up, Foyt.

Final Thoughts

Revealing Eden is the reason I started this blog in the first place, and while I plan to continue this blog beyond Eden, it's going to be a little weird continuing on beyond it.  Perhaps I WILL revisit that sequel someday, though not right away.  Like I said earlier, my brain can only handle so much of Eden Newman at a time before it demands a break.  Maybe in another year or two...

Revealing Eden is awful.  Even disregarding the subject matter, it's an awful book.  The writing is terrible, the main character is an unlikable Mary Sue, the romance is gag-inducing, the plot has more holes than a colander and relies on Deus Ex Machina to resolve itself, and the author can't be bothered to actually do research unless it suits her.  It should never have seen publication -- and indeed, I strongly suspect the only reason this book got printed is because Foyt or someone close to her owned the publishing company, a theory supported by the fact that this book and its sequel are the only books Sand Dollar Press has published to date.

And as a book meant to decry racism as evil, it fails terribly.  It takes more than swapping out which ethnicity is being persecuted to make a statement about racism -- do you honestly think white people are unable to understand how terrible racism is unless they're the persecuted minority?  And it doesn't help your cause when you indulge in constant racist imagery throughout your novel -- comparing black people to beasts, giving them laughably stereotypical names and appearances, having your precious white protagonist live in constant fear of being attacked and raped by SCARY BLACK MEN, turning your black love interest into a literal beast and having the protagonist ride him like a horse... and that's just scratching the surface.

There's also the furry-romance aspect, which I suspect must have been added to the book when Foyt stumbled onto the furry fandom and decided to appeal to that niche in an effort to gain a cult following.  I have nothing against furries and I seriously doubt her decision to incorporate furry romance into her novel contributed to its failure, but I do think this was a bad choice on her part.  Furries would no doubt be turned off by the book's horrific concept, and non-furries would just be weirded out by the human/jaguar-hybrid making out and steer clear.  

Foyt seems to have vanished off the Internet since her books caused such a stir -- the last activity I can find regarding her seems to be a piece of short fiction published to a blog in September 2013 where Eden has an encounter with an encantado (a Brazilian mythological creature that can shapeshift into a river dolphin).  And I'm going to guess her book bombed pretty hard and the ensuing controversy made it hard for her to find work, as she ended up having to sell her California mansion.  I have to wonder if she's wised up about her work and is keeping her head low, or if she's still as clueless as ever and plans on gracing the world with a third volume in her Save the Pearls series.  Please, no...

This is the worst book I have ever read.  It's badly written, badly researched, and fails horribly at being a cry against racism.  The only possible book that might take its place on that list is The Legend of Rah and the Muggles by N. K. Stouffer (a.k.a. the lady who sued J. K. Rowling over use of the word "muggle"), and even it, for all its awfulness, doesn't overflow with unfortunate implications in every chapter.

And now... this blog will be taking a break until sometime in January.  Once it starts up again, we'll be taking aim at a new book, a fantasy that doesn't seethe with racist implications like Revealing Eden or homophobia like Hamlet's Father, but should still be entertaining nonetheless.  Stay tuned for Bitterwood, by James Maxey.

Looks awesome, doesn't it?

Careful, Covers Always Lie...