That a mega lefty Asian-American writer Emiko Jean would write the most pro-life novel I have ever read (or imagined reading) is a surprising and encouraging sign of a cultural turn that is underway. In Mika in Real Life, a teenager's decision to give birth to a child of rape is never explained, let alone justified. To the contrary, it's presented as such a normal thing to do that no explanation is necessary. The entire novel exists around the idea that this was the only good thing the main character did in her life. All of the pro-life folks should shut up right now because they usually make their case in the clumsiest possible way. Instead, they need to buy mountains of copies of Mika and hand them out to late teens and young adults. I'm a lifelong abortion rights supporter, and I honestly say that the book's message landed with me. It didn't transform me into a different person but if I'd read it as a teenager, it probably would have.
Jean is very mainstream, best-selling, and, once again, so left-wing that AOC looks conservative by her side. But she's not writing about lefty topics anymore because there's no longer that much interest.
Then there's the exceptionally lefty Jewish-American Taffy Brodesser-Ackner. This year she also effectuated a sharp right turn away from her formerly deeply woke interests.
Writers are barometers of reality. If they have even a crumb of talent, their text will wrestle control and run its own way. I have no idea what Jean and Brodesser-Ackner wanted to say in their novels. It's utterly unimportant because we can never find out for certain. But they are showing that the weather has changed and we are moving in a different direction now.
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