Again very foggy and dreary this morning. Ah, summer.
The trains were all stacked up as usual. So one passed, already full, at my stop. I got on the next one and got a seat. The only reason I sat down (I usually opt to stand) is because I brought my footstool to work with me, so I employed it. I drank the smoothie I made and had poured into a travel thermos. The smoothie was made of nectarines I bought two days ago at Trader Joe’s which had already turned. Note to self: never buy fruit at Trader Joe’s. This has happened enough times now.
The train got pretty full. The girl next to me was making origami out of a dollar bill. This other girl got on and was reading some book called “The Dirty Girl’s Social Club” or something. It had a THIS IS CHICK-LIT!!! cover: lots of bright colors and a drawing of two very skinny women clinking champagne glasses. SIGH. That got me thinking about how much I hate the “chick-lit” label.
The sexist thing about the chick-lit label is that the term supposes that the book was written by a young woman and is about women and their feminine issues, and conforms to a happy-ending type model, usually. It’s got pink on the cover and involves shopping and dating and shoes and bars and the thrills of urban single girl life, right? It’s chick lit! Because that’s what “chicks” love to read about! Easy and breezy summertime beach reading!
SO, does it then follow that books written by hip young male authors — like Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers, Chuck Palahniuk, and Nick Hornby — books which are about men and have male themes and stories, and have black or red or blue on the cover and are so masculine and have smoking and drinking and screwing and angsting… those are guy-lit, right? For GUYS to read! Guys, talking about their childhoods, and the pain of growing up! Getting bullied! Making big mistakes! Going off to the big city to meet a girl! Figuring out the meaning of it all! Guy lit!
No, that’s just “literature.” It’s “novels.” Written by men! Of course! Men write BOOKS, and girls write “chick-lit.”
I know, I just made about a hundred generalizations. Unfortunately, that seems to be how the publishing world works, too.
Anyway, back on the train, I see this guy who has the sparsest, oddest-looking beard I’ve ever seen. It’s like, these long blond chin hairs spaced apart widely, just floating there wispily. I puzzled over that for awhile before realizing that I may in fact have been staring at a woman, not a man. Throughout the train ride I kept trying to discern the person’s gender, but never came to a conclusion.
Meanwhile, the girl next to me pulled a Post-It pad from her bag, wrote some Chinese kanji on it, and then folded it into a little yellow crane.
Actually, believe it or not, there is a growing subgenre of literature with the same basic themes of “chick lit” — urban living, dating, pop-cultural references, etc. — only from a ‘guy’ perspective (that is, equally shallow and vapid, but more stupid than catty, more sexist than sexy, and a different set of banal cultural signifiers).
And it is called…
…no, really, it is…
…”lad lit”.
shooting self, Nick Hornsby, others
LAD Lit. Oh, that is so much better. For the lads, down the pub! Oy, mate! Let’s go ‘ave a pint with the lads, and then read a book or summat!
Wait it just occured to me that you may be thinking of Irvine Welsh.
There’s a lot of irritation amongst women authors about this marketing category. Truth be told, I understand the exasperation much better from the perspective of a woman reader, than an author. The “chick-lit” books are more on a par with genre than literary fiction — they’re not published because they’re formalistically interesting, but because the subject matter is foremost. I get a little tired of women complaining that “chick-lit” is making it harder for their serious literary fiction to receive consideration by publishers.
No it’s not. Readers who validate cheesy fiction make it hard for serious literary fiction (whatever the genre of author) to receive consideration.
Noting the comments above: I think lad lit officially tanked. The broad stereotypes fail to take into consideration that Women Like Relationships and Men Like Guns. Men already have mystery and thrillers — the made-for-Hugh-Grant option books are chick-lit in drag.
Ha ha! Gender of author, not genre.
Hoo boy. 4:08.
Yeah, true, the lad-lit thing has made about as much impact on the modern literature market as has Flemish automatic writing. The fact that it was out there at all, though…well, no, I guess it doesn’t say anything at all. It says that marketing people are always trying to justify their paychecks, maybe.
Which reminds me, the next time I hear something marketed with a variant on “finally, _____________ for GUYS!” (fill in the blank with TV, movies, books, etc.), I’m going to suicide-bomb someone. EVERYTHING IS FOR GUYS. EVERYTHING EVER HAS ALWAYS BEEN FOR GUYS. SHUT UP.
Sigh. I gotta quit listening to sports radio.
Yeah that whole launch of Spike TV channel was really a head scratcher. Wow. A TV channel… for men? That’s quite novel! Why, it’s revolutionary! Next you’ll tell me that beer, car, bank, and athletic shoe commercials are also for men!
It must have made poor ESPN cry.
Also MTV. Also Comedy Central. And all those other cable channels that were created just for the sole entertainment of women.
Ooooh! I got one!
“Finally, tampons for GUYS!”
That one actually works.