Chick Lit came on the scene back in the mid-90's and it found a ready-made market eager to devour every new title. Today it makes its mark as a cross-media sensation.
When Meryl Streep buys into a trend, it's time to sit up and take notice. The Devil Wears Prada, which surely must be playing in a theater near you, is a prime example of the red hot genre known, in the trade and on the streets, as "chick lit."
That's a catchy moniker for a literary movement that is getting a ton of media coverage right now. But chick lit in all of its juiciness has been around for a while. It hit the big time a decade ago with the 1996 publication of Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding. Since then, the genre has popped up on all but the most erudite of bestseller lists week after week, earning vast amounts of money for publishers who jumped on the bandwagon and for the authors they rushed to sign. A year after Bridget was published, journalist Candace Bushnell expanded on her regular columns in the New York Observer and published a little gem called Sex and the City. Chick lit was off and running.
Unlike traditional romance novels, with plot lines sometimes encompassing historical fiction, exotic locales and often unlikely characters, chick lit strikes a more personal note. Like Sex and the City, which examined the lives of Bushnell and her girlfriends as they struggled with the single life in New York City, the genre looks at familiar surroundings and familiar problems. There is an abundance of angst. There is a lot of agonizing over men, careers, clothes and calories. But the tone is usually (not always - there is some really bad stuff out there) more intellectual and the writing more polished than traditional women's fiction. The characters are usually quirky, but smart and believable. Humor, of the sophisticated and witty variety, is a big ingredient in most of the stories.
The genre is still evolving but for the most part it is hip, slick, and girlie. It's a step up from the long-entrenched and often steamy bodice-ripper crop of romance novels. And it is a couple of steps up (at least) from the ubiquitous Harlequin romances. Unlike those old stand-bys, chick lit is usually published in trade paperback format, with stylish artwork on the covers and a subtle but distinctly upscale look and feel.
Initially aimed mostly at twentysomethings, chick lit has now started to age a bit - along with its legion of readers. While still predominantly dealing with the very young and very hip, some savvy authors are following this generation into the next decade or two. New titles are examining the lives of women in their late 30's and well into their 40's. These women, married now and often with children, face a different set of issues but the tone remains the same.
If you haven't tried chick lit and want to give it a whirl, here are some of the big name bestsellers:
- Shopaholic Takes Manhattan - Sophie Kinsella (pseudonym of Madeleine Wickham)
- The Devil Wears Prada - Lauren Weisberger
- The Other Woman - Jane Green
- Good in Bed - Jennifer Weiner
- The Nannie Diaries - Emma McLaughlin
And the movie version of The Devil Wears Prada? See it. It's a hoot.
