TL;DR - How do you guys feel about authors writing about social issues that do not affect them, but affect oppressed groups they do not belong to?

Personally, I don't think there's an issue with someone writing a character that doesn't reflect perfectly the author's own identity or personal experiences. That's what writing, and especially writing fiction, is. But my hackles will always rise when people write from a position of privilege on something that specifically does not/cannot affect them but affects a minority/oppressed group. When the author doesn't/can't have a personal understanding of this experience but they seek to profit from that experience and that story nonetheless.

The reason I'm thinking about this right now is I have a couple of Nat Cassidy books on my TBR, and I'm gonna be real, I thought this was a female writer. It's quite an ambiguous name and I was not previously familiar with his work. Now I know it's a cis man writing about some really thorny female-specific/woman-specific experiences* (and not just tangentially - from what I understand, these experiences form the heart, the engine of these narratives) from the perspective of female characters... yeah I'm side eyeing this a bit.

To be clear, I'm not saying this is outright wrong or somehow immoral or that stories should never be told unless they're told by someone who has directly experienced them or been impacted by the themes they deal with. I think that's a little silly.

But I do think if we are intending to write marginalised experiences we need to ask, why am I telling this story and why do I think my voice was the necessary one to do so? Why is my perspective the one that should be published? Am I benefitting from systemic harms done to others and leveraging my position of privilege to amplify my own voice rather than theirs?

Specific to my example, I have read good things about Cassidy's work, but I feel like maybe there are more appropriate voices to tell these stories that I should be supporting instead. I don't know. What are your thoughts?

[potential spoiler warning for Cassidy's novels below, but not really because I haven't read them]

*From what I have been told, Cassidy has written novels about menopause, medical gaslighting, motherhood and traumatic labour, and the horrific ways in which female people and female bodies suffer these experiences under patriarchal conditions.

What are your thoughts on chapter titles? Personally, I love them, especially when they're clever and hint at what may happen in the chapter. But I feel like so many books don't have them! Perhaps they're just more common/popular with YA and middle grade books, so publishers don't want to include them in adult books.

It is a nice hot day here in my part of the UK and this lines up perfectly with my recent hyper-fixation - Italy and, more niche, the Mafia! I am itching to finish a current read so I can read The Godfather by Mario Puzo but it got me thinking - does anyone have any Mafia-related (or adjacent) books which are not a smutty romance? I have looked at the lists and can only find romances which aren’t the vibe I’m going for…

I have nothing against Mafia romance but I’m looking for a gritty thriller or a non-fiction, does anyone have any recommendations?