Desire is not always politically correct.

We aren't always drawn to "good" people or the "right" people, and we aren't always drawn to people for admirable reasons. That seems pretty basic to me.

But this Boston Globe critic  nailed me for not creating an admirable character, or one whose choices would allow her to feel empathy. According to her, Thief's Suzanne displays "willful stupidity" in her choice of lovers and in her decision to get involved with the rapist Alpha Breville.

I get it — she disapproves of Suzanne. I guess she wanted me to write a different story than the one I did. It also sounds as though she had absolutely no patience with the book. 

Over the years I've wanted to wring the necks of a few fictional characters. I got so caught up in their stories that I wanted to shake them and say, hey, can't you see what's going on? Can't you see what I see?

I felt that way about Wharton's Lily Bart in The House of Mirth. Wouldn't a life like Gerty Farish's be better than death? Or how about Anna Karenina? Why can't she just let herself be happy with Vronsky? Why does she have to torture herself as she does?

Yet those are the fates the authors gave to their heroines, and how the characters handled those fates was the focus of the novels: Lily can't live as Gerty does, just as Anna can not forget her son.

My personal frustration with the characters became part of the stories, at least in a way, but it always was (and still is) my own frustration.

Suzanne comes to her own decision about her life in her own time — and before the end of the book. She bore the weight of things that happened to her, and of her own decisions, and in the end she has clarity about her guilt and her innocence.

At least that's the book I think I wrote. It has to speak on its own now, and I get that.

But truthfully — and throwing diplomacy aside! — I think some people have trouble with Suzanne because she doesn't behave the way they think a rape "victim" is supposed to behave.

And tomorrow I'll write about the insight that came to me last night as I was sitting in the bar — the same bar that I write about in Thief.