March 7, 2003

Sociologists in Novels: a Skewed Sample

By DIANE BJORKLUND

Sociologists, it seems, get no respect from novelists. It's not that they aren't interesting enough to serve as fictional characters. In the last century, sociologists have appeared in at least 80 novels, including mysteries, science fiction, and romance. Well-known writers from D.H. Lawrence to Stephen King have included sociologists as characters. Even Batman's mother, as we learn in Andrew Vachss's Batman: The Ultimate Evil (1995), was a sociologist. Yet the portrayal of sociologists in

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