As awful as crime can be, it's what happens afterward - the struggling to get out of bed, to put one foot in front of the other - that alters people.
Karin SlaughterRead
Good crime writing holds up a mirror to the readers and reflects in a darker light the world in which they live.
Interpretation
Crime writing reveals uncomfortable truths about society.
Karin Slaughter's quote suggests that effective crime writing serves as a reflection of reality, illuminating the darker aspects of the human experience and society. By engaging with these stories, readers confront unsettling truths about their own world, allowing for deeper reflection and understanding of the complexities of life.
In practice
This quote can be used in a literary discussion about the role of crime fiction in understanding societal issues.
As awful as crime can be, it's what happens afterward - the struggling to get out of bed, to put one foot in front of the other - that alters people.
Reading is exercise for our brains in the guise of pleasure. Books give us insight into other people, other cultures. They make us laugh. They make us think. If they are really good, they make us believe that we are better for having read them.
It's extraordinary how many people read a book that's new and weird and befriend it.
Novelists go about the strenuous business of marrying and burying their people, or else they send them to sea, or to Africa, or at the least, out of town. Essayists in their stillness ponder love and death.
We were trained as writers with the idea that literature is something that can change reality, that it's not just a very sophisticated entertainment but a way to act.
Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version.
There might be a different model for a literary community that's quicker, more real-time, and involves more spontaneity.
Readers embrace all kinds of characters as long as they are written with emotional truth.
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