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| Hearsay: |
After twisting its shapely ankle on a strappy, five-inch heel caught in a sewer grate, Chick-lit has bravely righted itself, adjusted its skirt so only a sliver of panty is visible, wiped away its drunken mascara tears, and screamed, “Fuck you, asshole!” into the night. It’s, like, transformative.
When I was an editor, my books were in the genre known for some reason as “commercial women’s fiction”. We – my colleagues and fellow publishers – loved these books and knew the truth, which is that books bought by women prop up the book trade, and that we should be proud both of the product itself and the diversion it gives hardworking people who want a good read. Now I’ve left, I’m looking at it from the other side – and what I see alarms me.
I am passionate about this kind of writing, but it seems to me to come in for an extraordinary amount of bile and patronising comment which I rarely see applied to novels by men in the same vein. Books – both fiction and non-fiction – reflecting women’s lives, whether young or old, are labelled. Hence “chick-lit”: often a derogatory term used to mean books by young women drinking chardonnay and being silly about boys, without the thought that novels by women about women might accurately reflect their lives and thus have merit or, at the very least, relevance.
It winds me up that books about young women are seen as frivolous and silly, while books about young men’s lives that cover the same topics, are reviewed and debated, seen as valid and interesting contributions to the current social and media scene. Take anything from Toby Young’s How To Lose Friends and Alienate People to The Contortionist’s Handbook to Toby Litt or David Nicholls’s One Day, or the works of Dave Eggers and Jonathan Lethem. Often these books are far more sensationalist than those by the authors’ female counterparts: about how many women the protagonists have slept with, how many drugs they’ve done, what a crazy nihilistic time they’re having in London / New York. I’m not saying they’re bad books: Jonathan Lethem is one of my favourite writers and One Day is probably my book of the year. I’m just saying they aren’t belittled and dismissed in the same way on the grounds of their subject-matter.
Eggers early work I can get, but Lethem compared to Trollope? We’re into talking bananas and figs here people. And for the record, I strive to be an equal opportunity belittler of poorly written, philosophically vacant, socially inexcusable prose. But it’s hard when the market is flooded with SO MUCH of the crappy escapism this woman wants us to take seriously.
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November 13th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Just a point of language usage: your post reads “adjusted it’s skirt so only a sliver of panty is visible”and it should read ITS skirt, no?
November 13th, 2009 at 10:20 am
You might have to click refresh, Sal. Any of the very little editing I do is done after the initial publication and sometimes gets stuck there if you get to the site before I’ve had a chance to update the post. It’s not uncommon I’d make that mistake, but I caught it today!
November 13th, 2009 at 10:51 am
It seems to me that the equal to Chick-lit, in male-oriented books, would not be Eggers and Lethem, but Clancy and Cussler. The stereotype of chick-lit is that it’s all about walking stereotypes, women whose chief desires are shoes and cocktails with gossipy friends, shopping and makeovers. Maybe the equivalent for men would be Dick-lit, glorifying the male stereotype, men whose chief desires are to fly helicopters, have fist-fights and blow things up. Neither has much basis in reality, and, in fact, rarely are actual novels in either genre limited to such cartoonish storylines. But we’re talking stereotypes here.
November 13th, 2009 at 11:11 am
I agree with Joel. The problem is not with ‘chick lit’ but with gender stereotyping in fiction in general. The pandering must stop (or, more correctly, I wish it could stop but it won’t).
November 13th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I don’t think the author is trying to defend those pastel covered books with curly fonts and disembodied shoes – full of shopping, fear of turning 30, and trying to snag a man.
There are many fantastic books that – similar to Eggers – are honest, truthful portrayals of the lives of young women. But if that book is “marketable” to women, it becomes chick-lit.
The problems come when all fiction written by women is grouped into “Chick-lit” and that many novels of literary worth are ignored by half the population because it’s a book “for women”
I worry that the next Fear of Flying will be slapped with a high heel on the cover and buried in the chick lit ghetto.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Perhaps the problem is not with gender stereotyping, but with the audience’s need for “diversion.” Readers of this kind of fiction appear to not want to do the work, imaginatively or thoughtfully, and would rather have the story and plot planned out predictably. The problem seems to be one of trying to escape the “real” world of money, violence, debt, and work into a fiction that is easy to read and requires no thought. I think.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Smug much?
I am a “reader of this kind of fiction,” which apparently means that I do not want to do “imaginative and thoughtful” work when I read a book, happy instead with predictable escapism.
Just like all those people who are fond of Shakespearean comedies, I suspect.
Oh wait, sorry. Shakespeare’s comedies were based on romances, which have a long history of being denigrated as those stupid things that women like. Plus ça change.
November 13th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
I have to agree with Sarah. First, I’m wondering how many people who are so quick to jump on the anti-’chick lit’ bandwagon have actually gotten past the (admittedly) horrid covers and read one. Second, thought no one seems to want to admit it, Chick lit is just the opposite end of the gender spectrum from an author like, say, Nick Hornby (who gets feted by the critics every time he comes out with a book).
There is a lot of genre fiction out there with authors putting out books just as “poorly written, philosophically vacant, socially inexcusable” as some of the chick lit books that are released. Titles in the Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Graphic Novel and Mystery/Thriller categories all come to mind as possible candidates. But critics aren’t usually as quick to dismiss (or mock) those entire categories/genres like they do women’s fiction novels. Why is that?
As for faulting the audience for chick-lit because they are looking for books that are a “diversion” or escapist – isn’t that a bit of the pot calling the kettle black? All novel reading is a form of entertainment and escapism. It’s just a matter of choosing your personal poison.
November 13th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
The reality of publishing is that every book, to have a chance at commercial success, must be labeled, catag
November 13th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Let me try again. The reality of publishing is that every
book, to have a chance at commercial success, must be
labeled, catagorized and genre-fied. Given that, the problem
with “chick lit” is its name which by itself trivializes the
work. I prefer “Smart Girl” books to describe books about
smart women, read by today’s smart
women.
November 13th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
George, I don’t want to misread you, so just checking: you’re saying you don’t think Lethem an excellent writer? If so, I’m kind of surprised. Have you read Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn and his earlier genre-blending work? I’m keen to dig into Chronic City. I often bemaon that fact that we don’t have Lethem-type writers in Canada. Or do we?
November 13th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
For the retentive types who extra time on their hands to copy-edit others’ posts: yes I know how bemoan is actually spelled.
November 13th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Which chick-lit books? Talking in such generalities is as informative as it is helpful.
I think Lee Nichols’s Drama Queen series is as vacuous and funny as anything written by a humorist not named Wodehouse. Or her Hand-Me-Down, or the first Shopaholic–for the Ur Chicklit, Brigid Jones.
I’d like to see you, or any other critic, belittle them–for example–by name, instead of wasting all that ammo shooting at clouds. And she’s just the first, relatively-unknown, author of chicklit who springs to mind.
November 13th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
As someone who works in publishing, I generally look forward to reading your blog. However, as a woman, the tone of this post really has made me seriously consider removing it from my RSS reader.
Harriet Evans is addressing the issue of sexism in publishing, which is a very real thing. The complete exclusion of any female writers from the recent PW 2009 line up is evidence enough. Women writers are often lumped into this genre of Chick-lit, and while I think Ms. Evans is perhaps revealing that she was in the past part of the problem, it is good of her to address the issue in a public forum.
Let’s take for example Lethem’s You Don’t Love Me Yet. His main female character is essentially portrayed as not having an original thought in her head, while a manipulative man comes off as a hero. Every character was vapid and I finished the book feeling like I’d lost some brain cells and wanting my money back. Some of his earlier work is much more likable (and actually Chronic City was quite good), but it doesn’t change the fact that his work generally features overgrown man-boys who never quite got over their old boxes of comics and Philip K. Dick novels. Yet he is consistently lauded by the media as being an excellent writer. If a woman wrote a similar novel, with a similar main character it would likely be smacked inside a pink cover with a shoe on it and never reviewed once.
Do I think the books Ms. Evans is referring to should be taught in schools? No. However I do think it is worthwhile to examine why we so easily dismiss such a huge swath of fiction.
November 13th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
I love Lethem. For what it’s worth. I’m not sure if there’s a Canadian analog to Lethem, though. He’s an original. But perhaps there’s a Canadian ot two out there with no analog, either.
November 13th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Hey all, great discussion. Can’t talk long because the flu is finally hitting the kids, BUT…. For the record, I don’t disagree with Evans, or any of you, that publishing is sexist. I do, however, disagree that we should take the vast, vast, VAST majority of what’s labelled “chicklit” seriously just because some books are mislabelled by greedy publishers. Just like I feel and have said about SF/fantasy, thriller, etc., and, yes, even literary novels and poetry.
The marketing is not the only thing that’s insulting: genre itself is insulting to the intelligence of the stupidest people who read it. But I think that about most “male” books too. Chicklit isn’t stories about women. It’s simplistic stories about caricatures of women. Shoes, sex, and shopping. Just like thrillers are stories about caricatures of men. Guns, girls, and guts. The books you’re all talking about saving from this quagmire are collateral damage in the explosion of crap that is targeted marketing.
Part of what’s infuriating, I agree, is that they take marketing tools that sell idiot stories and slap them onto deserving books to increase sales. The Austen/Bronte books being done in pastel pink is particularly tasteless and dreadful, but I pity the poor authors who spent years crafting books they think of as serious to get slapped with a high hems and heels cover. For a “guy’s” version of this in action, take Andrew Pyper’s books: they get written off as thrillers because of how they’re packaged and sold, but do genuinely have something more to them. On the other hand, Pyper’s done well by this, as have some mislabelled “chicklit” stars who have perhaps produced better books.
So, please note that I do think the same thing about most dicklit. I regularly make fun of the thriller mill, crappy SF, and whiny emo books by urban boys. And also remember that part of my job here is to go for the joke. Sometimes it bites a little too close to the bone, whether said bone is covered in cammo or Manolo leather.
November 13th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
“Harriet Evans is addressing the issue of sexism in publishing, which is a very real thing. The complete exclusion of any female writers from the recent PW 2009 line up is evidence enough”
Sorry Michelle. I don’t buy it. Just because no women were on the PW 2009 isn’t proof positive of sexism in the industry. I’m going to need more than that. Is it not possible that no women made the list because their books weren’t good enough to cut it from the pool of books used to determine the list? Had the list been all women instead, do you think men would have suddenly pulled the sexism card too?
Why is it when one group feels they are over/under represented (writers, police, fire, educators, etc.) they suddenly scream some type of ‘ism. Is it not entirely possible that life just rolled that way? Why seek out conspiracies when there are none?
Cue can of worms opening……now.
November 13th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Um, I’m not with him. Continue.
November 13th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Dave, you’re boring.
Cue can of worms closing…. again.
November 13th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I’m with George (not Dave). The problem is not so much that a few great books have been slapped with demeaning labels like “chick-lit,” “romance,” “thriller,” “media tie-in,” etc. The problem is that these marketing categories were created for the express purpose of selling crummy hackwork by the truckload – and readers happily went along.
To put it otherwise, the number of readers who think it’s kind of unfair that a thoughtful, complex book gets marketed as, for example, a “thriller” is far lower than the number of readers who gobble down thrillers like candy until the day they chance upon a thoughtful, complex thriller, at which point they mutter, “What the hell is this crap?” and toss it over their collective and metaphorical shoulder.
November 14th, 2009 at 11:19 am
George, I’m a woman, and I’m trying to figure out how to add your site to my RSS feeder twice, you’re great.
No one else has had to giggle at the thought that Toby Young’s “How To Lose Friends and Alienate People” was considered good literature and debated? Um, that might be stretching reality a bit.
Also, is it cynical to say that dredging up this horribly boring debate (might I suggest a way to cut the debate off, and say, “read what you WANT, people, and don’t worry what the critics say about it”?) is just a way for these critics to make a splash and get some commentary going? Am I the only one who thinks there was probably a scene like this going on at PW’s editorial offices:
Writer 1: “Oh, god, we have to write another horrible and boring ‘best books’ list? Christ I hate my life.”
Writer 2: “Nobody reads these stupid things anyway, and a million of them are done a year. So pointless.”
Writer 3: (Quietly.) I know how to get it read.
Writers 1 and 2: How? Do tell–we don’t want to lose our jobs here, even if we hate our lives.
Writer 3: Put all men on it. I guarantee you links and commentary and fights until at least 2010.
Writers 1 and 2: It’s genius! (They clap for Writer 3.)
Writer 3: (Humbly.) Thank you.
George–best of luck with NinjaKids and the flu.
November 14th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Sarah (comment #7),
Have you read many of Shakespeare’s comedies? They’re anything but simple. In fact, many of them are just as tragic and even sadistic as his tragedies, made all the more gruesome by the fact that they’re disguised as formulaic comedies. Yes, Shakespeare used the conventions and formulas of existing genres, but he used them; he never conformed blindly to them. And medieval and renaissance romance literature is very different from today’s idea of the romance genre.
November 14th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Kevin-
You got me. I’ve never actually read any of Shakespeare’s comedies, let alone the materials they’re based on. I’ve just heard so many people talking about this “Shakespeare” genre, and, picking up a variety of others’ opinions from blogs, Harold Bloom’s podcast, arts sections in papers that I don’t read (because they’re, you know, Tory rags), and, coupling it with my desire to seem of-the-moment, I dashed off a seemingly-knowing sermon to a cadre of the converted based entirely on my TA’s opinion from ENGL 202.
Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.
November 14th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Burn! Okay, anyone have any real comments to pick this back up? What I’m hearing: Sexism exists in publishing; blanket application of “chicklit” to all women’s writing is inexcusable, esp when there isn’t really a corollary for men’s writing; but some don’t think this is happening, at least not on a grand scale.
So, question 1: does the sexism reside in the fact that whatever-the-male-equivalent-of-chicklit-is isn’t actually labelled, and therefore doesn’t get ghettoized, in the same kind of way?
Question 2: does whatever-the-male-equivalent-of-chicklit-is-that-isn’t-labelled-as-such not get labelled as such because, regardless of how it’s labelled, it won’t be bought by the greater book-buying public (ie, women) and therefore can’t benefit from a convenient marketing pigeon-hole?
Question 3: can anyone figure out a better way to phrase question 2?
November 14th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
um. that’s not me
November 14th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
George –
Love the discussion and the blog. That said, I don’t care how dicklit is labeled. I’m more bothered by why chicklit is summarily dismissed (often by people who haven’t read any of it) because it’s explicitly targeted at women. And why is it assumed that books that are targeted towards women are not up to par?
Do you really think chicklit is just about shoes, shopping and sex? Isn’t that like saying Fight Club was just about guys beating the crap out of each other? If you’re interested, I’d recommend checking out Jennifer Belle… you might be surprised. Maybe you won’t be interested in the subject matter – but I doubt you’ll argue that she can’t write.
November 15th, 2009 at 3:25 am
Sarah,
Your comments are so steeped in snide irony that you’re not really saying anything. I’d give more of a response of there was more there to respond to. I’m not trying to be a jerk, but if you really want to make a point equating contemporary women’s fiction to Shakespeare’s comedies please do so without quotation marks, both literal and figurative, and I’m sure you will come up empty. Please prove me wrong. Sorry. Not trying to be a jerk. But really. Aren’t we all a bit tired of people trying to prove their own irrational biases by forcing them into historical analogues that simply doesn’t fit, instead of making a rational argument? Like all those Fox News guys who say Obama is Hitler and health care is the Holocaust. It’s empty rhetoric, which, when challenged, is met with more empty, deflecting rhetoric (in this case, irony).
For the record, I do think the label “chick lit” is inherently sexist, and I can think of many books that have been tragically slapped with that label (blame the marketing department). But, like most genres, ninety-five percent of it is crap. And this article seems to be defending the wrong side of that equation. After all, her first points defending the genre are to say that “women prop up the book trade” and that hard working people deserve diversions. That is the attitude behind most of the crap we find at the bookstore, be it chick lit or dick lit. People want diversions, and they’re paying for it. I don’t want diversions. Most of the women readers I know don’t want diversions. If anything, we want diversions of the diversions. The entire world these days is nothing but diversions. We’re all dying for substance. We’re starving for it. Please, sir, a scrap of something meaningful.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:42 am
I’m with Booksexy on this one. While apparently too snide for some, my sarcastic comments above re: Shakespeare, rather than comparing his plays to the likes of Bridget Jones (which, I’ll remind everyone, is an ingenious adaptation of Pride and Prejudice), pointed out that the romances (the 16th century precursors to all our modern novels) upon which Shakespeare based his work were widely denigrated as being foolish, not least because women liked them. If you’d like to read more on this, check out a biography of Mary Wroth, and follow the academic citations that will lead you to something like [see link above].
The point isn’t that the term “chicklit” is inherently sexist because there is no equally-contemptuous penis-equivalent. After all, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone _isn’t_ out to get you. The point is that there is something terrifically hypocritical and ill-informed about any hierarchy that places “literary” fiction securely at the top of a smug novel pyramid, dismissing 95% of all “genre” fiction like SF, Westerns, Romances and “that crap about shoes that women like” as unworthy of anyone’s attention (except, of course, for those works which “transcend” their forms, as decided by people who make a point of not reading said forms).
I can probably come up with critical arguments for how the Shopaholic books offer a stinging critique of Sex-in-the-City capitalism in the early 21st century (the main character is an economic journalist) or how, permeated through the lives of their various characters, Stephen King’s struggles with alcoholism mirror those of John Cheever. But neither I, nor any other reader, has to come up with a highfalutin rationale for our reading choices to satisfy the opinions of smug literates pronouncing from on high, especially when said smug literates refuse to check their privilege at the library door.
November 15th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
“ingenious”?
I dunno.
November 15th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
I’m not trying to be mean here, but I just want to see the basis of everyone’s opinons. Paul, have you read Bridget Jones’ Diaries? And Kevin, which books have you read in the chicklit category to come up with your 95% is crap? Or that 95% of most genre is crap?
It has always been my opinion that “genre” has been unfairly biased against. You know, Stephen King fiction falls under genre. As do Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, William Faulkner, Michael Chabon and many others. I think its a mistake to lump together a category of writing, or define a writer solely by what they choose to write about – and use that as your basis of judgment as to whether the work is or is not good. The point is, books and authors should be judged by the quality of the writing. Not by the choice of subject matter, where they’re shelved in the bookstore or who is the targeted audience.
November 15th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
@Sarah Neville: I guess to me the crux of the issue is what the readers come to this genre for. Do most of the readers who made Shopaholic a best-seller really appreciate its stinging critique of Sex-in-the-City capitalism? Or do they uncritically embrace Sex-in-the-City capitalism, pick up Shopaholic hoping for more of it, and are either disappointed or happily oblivious at the stinging critique encoded therein?
The former scenario is what I hope is true; the latter scenario is what I fear is true. I do think that if we’re going to celebrate the merits of smart literature subversively masquerading as fluff, then we have to show that significant numbers of readers actually get it.
November 15th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Umm…. so now we’ve gone from judging literary quality to the intelligence of those who choose to read it? While I’m sure it wasn’t intentional – what ISN’T sexist about that comment?
November 15th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
To clarify – what I was trying to say is – we’ve gone from judging the literary quality of books in the chicklit genre to judging the intelligence of those who choose to read those books. Just wanted to make sure everyone got it.
November 17th, 2009 at 12:34 am
BookSexy: Well I made essentially the same comment above, except it was about the thriller, which is a stereotypically male genre. I wasn’t trying to judge the intelligence of female (or male) readers, and I’m not even sure I was trying to judge the literary quality of books. What I’m really trying to nail down is what readers are looking for when they read deeply in a popular genre.
It could be the case that most readers of chick-lit (or thrillers, or Star Wars media tie-ins, or whatever) want the best of both worlds: they want irony and philosophical depth and cutting social commentary in addition to speedboat chases and Manolo Blahnik shopping sprees (or whatever the aesthetic trappings of the chosen genre are).
On the other hand, it could be the case that most readers of this genre don’t really care about those “high” literary values – they just want the Fendi handbags, the beautiful green-eyed assassins, and so on. And that’s a fine preference to have. It’s totally possible to be an intelligent person and an undemanding reader of fiction.
But if the world we live in is more like the second scenario, then we may be missing the point when we trumpet the subversive brilliance of “Shopaholic” or “The spy who came in from the cold.” It might be more useful to ask, “Was this very smart and original book, which pretends to be cliche and not-so-smart, a smashing success because of its deep smartness or because of its surface not-so-smartness? Which of those two qualities (if not both) is the one that made people recommend it to their friends?” I think these are important questions to ask because they give us an idea of what to expect from this genre in the future. Will the market continue to reward high literary quality? Will the imitators of this successful book (and there will be imitators) imitate its deep ambition as well as its surface, or only its surface?
November 17th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
p-l, point taken. But let me just say that I don’t believe what readers are “looking for” necessarily defines a genre. Once a genre is defined, I believe that the publisher is quick to throw a book into the category where it will easiest to market to the public. Perhaps, if a book is popular, they’ll attempt to piggy back on sales. But very seldom do I think a specific genre spawns imitators – except in isolated cases like the Jane Austen factory that’s recently developed or Sherlock Holmes mysteries by authors other than Doyle.
What a lot of people do not realize is that many authors now lumped into Chicklit had books published before the category existed. They’ve been re-packaged by the marketing machine in order to make its’ job easier.
As for the readers – I believe they return to a specific genre because they come across something that appealed to them – whether it be the quality of writing or the quality of the plotline – in a specific book. (For example, Dan Brown appropriated a compelling plotline for The DaVinci Code. Of course, that didn’t help his writing). They use the genre as a reference point. But keep in mind, writing in a specific genre or writing to appeal to the masses doesn’t signify the quality of the writing. Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Salinger, Dickens, McCarthy, Doyle, Lovecraft, King, and Shaekespeare (Sarah is absolutely correct in including him in this discussion) all wrote to appeal to the masses. They wrote within genres. They also happened to be gifted writers. One has nothing to do with the other. And I think it’s worth noting that just because the publishers have chosen to name a genre “literature” for shelving purposes doesn’t mean everything on those shelves has literary merit. And vice versa.