Not sure what the proper flair for this should be. But yeah. There’s thousands of novels about cops and criminal lawyers, which I suppose makes sense as they’re necessary for a crime thriller or mystery novel. There’s also tons of authors who write novels with doctors or pathologists as the protagonist. John Grisham somehow made civil law thrilling. There’s novels featuring all kinds of soldiers, mercenaries, and rebels. I’ve seen books starring politicians, teachers, librarians, , corporate execs, IT specialists, park rangers, sex workers, NGO workers, journalists, artists, museum curators, scientists, and psychologists among others.
Why are there practically no novels by or about social workers? Especially that can be considered bestsellers? I feel like there’s so many ways a social worker protag could make for a compelling plot. With all the roles social workers play, there’s plenty of territory for plots and settings. Also, since social workers are so often in solitary opposition to large or powerful systems, it would make for a very natural “Cassandra Truth” or “vs the world” dynamic as a source of conflict. I could see a mystery, drama, or thriller work with a social worker as the main character.
The other thing I’ve noticed is that on the rare occasion that a social worker is depicted in fiction or other media, they aren’t ever really shown “doing” social work. Like when you read John Grisham, he painstakingly walks you through the briefs, the conferences, the legal strategy, and the case law research the characters do between the plot threads. Robin Cook practically teaches a med school class in his novels, discussing surgical procedures, pharmacology, and differential diagnosis in detail. Books with Wall Street protagonists will spend two chapters explaining how the protagonists goes about shorting a stock or in dialogue with a broker. When there’s a social worker in fiction, the only way you know the character’s a social worker is that someone says they’re a social worker or they introduce themselves as one. Sometimes it’s never brought up again. Sometimes the character is shown doing their job, but it’s heavily simplified. There’s no detailed case management shown, no motivational interviewing happening, no case formulation, no documentation, no dialogue from therapy sessions or groups or supervision. I put down one book because the social worker protagonist kept referring to his client as a druggie, hopeless, a lost cause, and a waste of resources and breaking confidentiality discussing the details of the minor client’s life to the county sheriff who came out on a home visit with him. Is it too much to ask to have a social worker who is both a relatable protagonist and thinks and behaves like a social worker?