An intrepid Variety editor slipped us a draft of this morning’s feature on the rush to declare chick lit over (which was nice, since we don’t have a subscription to the paper), so I spent some time last night looking at it, and, to be honest, I don’t really see how it’s any different that what we’ve already been talking about in publishing for months already. So “the single gal in the big city who is more adept at shopping than relationships” is on her way out and brides, divorcées, suburbanistas, nearly-forty-somethings, and even women of color are moving in on her turf; this is news?
“Contemporary women’s fiction—dubbed chick lit, to the chagrin of many authors and publishers,” the article notes early on, “has spawned a seemingly endless bumper crop of titles with varying degrees of success.” You don’t say! Just how is “a seemingly endless bumper crop of titles with varying degrees of success” any different from, when you get right down to it, the entire publishing industry? Even as analysis of the chick-lit market, the article falls somewhat short; there’s nary a mention, for example, of the various erotic-themed lines in development at houses like Avon and Harlequin. And when it’s suggested that “some of the most eagerly awaited books in the genre have replaced sex with power as the key ingredient,” well, come on, workplace power struggles have always been a significant theme in the post-Bridget landscape. Lauren Weisberger hardly invented office drama, after all.
Sarah adds: my take on the piece is fairly similar to Ron’s, but I can’t help thinking that chick lit was ultimately one half (along with the current erotica boom) of a subgenre that reigned supreme in the 1980s: glitz & glamor, sex & shopping, whatever you want to call it. And since enough time’s passed, perhaps it’s also time for those melodramas to make a proper comeback? If Dallas can be made into a potential movie (though J.Lo as the Victoria Principal Character, um, no), and the Bagshawe sisters sell millions in Britain, and OAKDALE CONFIDENTIAL, the tie-in mystery for the soap opera As the World Turns, can top bestseller lists, it does look like a sea change is in order.
Besides, there’s plenty of power in those shoulder pads…