tongue in cheek

Edmund White II

his childhood was “boring”, as is childhood in general – there is an overarching need, he believes, particularly among American writers, to rake over* it at the expense of so much else.(…) He thinks French writers have the better approach to childhood: “If there’s a very innocent girl in a French novel, she loses her virginity by page two so we can get on with the story.”

the rest here

* rake over something: to continue to talk about something unpleasant that someone else no longer wants to talk or think about