Guts

Like many "seniors" I find myself rereading, or reading for the first time, old books. The artistry of what is mostly in the past can cause real emotional quakes in my now admittedly somewhat unsound foundations. I recently commented on what appears to be the fashion for showing readers the seamy, unattractive, amoral, callous sides of life. The more I see of this, and the more I turn to older fashions in fiction, the more I think the new (if not young) writers should have some intestinal fortitude--enough to dare to transport their readers. Or is something we were brought up to admire now considered unworthy? Are tenderness, a response to tragedy, an appreciation of poetic irony, a real sense of joy no longer admissible in
intellectual society?

Come on, all you writers! /show us Life; make  us weep and laugh out loud. Teach us empathy! HAVE SOME GUTS!