Genre in review--Chick Lit

I have mixed feelings about chick lit. On one hand, I deplore it as shallow, self-serving fluff. On the other, if it’s done right, chick lit can be a social satire about modern, urban life.

Chick lit tends to have a formulaic plot—in most cases, the protagonist balances work (sometimes having to do with a struggle with a Satanic boss or demonic coworkers) with a social life. In nearly all cases, the protagonist meets her perfect man (who happens also to be the reader’s idea of the perfect man) and discusses said perfect man with friends, one of whom invariably is a gay man (there’s a certain dream that single, urban women have, to have a male friend who is not interested in them sexually and with whom they can talk candidly about men and shoes and stuff; the gay friend fulfills that role). Ultimately, the story ends happily, with everyone getting what they want.

Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada is a classic example of this. The main character, Andy, obtains a job as the assistant to Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of Runway magazine, where she is generally a low-level lackey who is expected to do her boss’s bidding at a moment’s notice. As a result, her love life and friendships suffer. The book is, of course, a satire about the author’s own personal experience working for the notorious editor-in-chief of Vogue, Anna Wintour. Most of the novel centers around shallow, materialistic women and men for whom image is everything. There aren’t any gay best friends in The Devil Wears Prada, but the boyfriend here is a classic example of the “perfect” boyfriend: sweet, caring, committed. It’s a relatively well-done novel about living and working in New York City in your 20s, even if some of the book is a little unrealistic.

A less-well-done (and more unbelievable) example of this is the more recently published Because She Can, by Bridie Clark. The story revolves around Claire Truman, a talented, smart (Princeton graduate, of course) editor who goes to work for Vivian Grant, notorious publisher of Grant Books, who demeans her employees in the most horrible of ways. The author worked for a while for Judith Regan, and the boss in this book is a thinly disguised version of her. Because She Can was published just after the OJ Simpson book debacle, so the book was, if anything, opportunistic. Vivian Grant is a laughable caricature—she throws tantrums that would make a two-year-old proud. Claire’s lifestyle is a little unrealistic for a woman in her 20s who works in publishing—she lives on Perry Street and shops at Barneys. Then she begins dating Wall Street tycoon Randall Cox, to whom she becomes engaged after dating him for only a few months. And yes, in addition to being wealthy, Randall is the perfect man (good looking, kind, thoughtful, you name it). The author uses a lot of hyperbole to get her point across, and the plot is ridiculously simple and predictable at times.

But then again, both Because She Can and The Devil Wears Prada are enjoyable and should be taken with a grain of proverbial salt. That’s the beauty of chick lit. It can be great escapist reading.