Joanna Trollope loves chick-lit

Joanna Trollope, author of fourteen novels and one of the judge's for the Melissa Nathan Award has blogged for The Guardian about her own view of chick-lit, saying:

it's hard to write good romantic fiction, and it's much, much harder to write funny good romantic fiction.

She continues:

It's odd, isn't it, how squeamish we are about love as a topic. It's fine for a hallmarked classic - Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina - but if the heroine is a modern girl commuting in to a dull job on the Central Line from Epping, we come all over contemptuous. We use words and phrases like shallow and frothy and only fit for women on sunbeds (so RUDE to readers). I don't believe there's a creature on this planet - man, woman, straight, gay, any creed or race - who isn't longing to love and be loved in some way at some point in their lives. It's the Great Topic we all have in common, and quite right too - get your relationships right and most of the rest of life assumes its proper proportion.

And we know men read these books - though they do beg for covers which don't look like they'd been designed by American child beauty queens (and I'm right with them there). Some read the novels to try and understand the women in their lives and some because it's such a relief to read about emotions and not have to pretend they haven't got any.

It isn't a surprise to me that readers love comedy romance. It re-boots the mind and heart after plodding round life's treadmill day after day; it reminds all of us of that fantastic Cresta Run ride of falling in love; it gives us hope, energy and makes us laugh. Oh and it isn't called chick lit. It's called wit lit.

Dorothy Koomson calls it "heart-lit", Joanna calls it "wit lit". I haven't got another name for it myself, but it does make you think, there are so many aspects and layers to chick-lit, how can it be categorised and dismissed by the media by the one phrase? They, after all, often use the term "chick-lit" in a derisive way (unlike Trashionista). There is romantic comedy of the sort Joanna is talking about, and there are also grittier novels, for example with the theme of domestic violence in Marian Keyes latest. Unfortunately I don't think "well written, emotional, deep, comedic, romantic, hard-hitting, gritty -lit" is going to catch on.

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