Before we begin, though, the one thing you should know about the chick-lit writing business, however, is whether you are going to celebrate the term ‘chick lit’ or be offended by it. Either position works – but it is important to get huffy and opinionated about it.
At the Delhi launch of her delightful third novel, Those Pricey Thakur Girls, I remember author Anuja Chauhan saying she found the association of her fun, feisty, and definitely strong female protagonists with “chicks” – fuzzy, brainless if cute creatures – problematic. It is, of course, a most moot point.
When my first novel was published, every single interview would open with the chick-lit question. And I would take my chance to get all huffy and opinionated. I’d say that while I did try to consciously play around with the usual tropes of chick-lit – my young vague heroine Mil Chatterjee was not looking for Mr Right, having already married him on a whim before the book begins, for instance – I had no problem with the label as such, since I felt it reclaimed the female roots of the novel.
After all, the early novel had been meant to entertain women readers who suddenly had the leisure (in industrial England they no longer had to make candles or soap for household use themselves and that opened up pockets of time that should not be left to the devil) to read, but apparently their rudimentary education did not quite equip them to deal with ‘high brow’ stuff that men dabbled in – epics, poetry or history. And so the novel was born.
Soon enough, though, women adopted the novel form themselves, and some of the earliest self-employed women were novelists. In a way, an unapologetic flaunting of the label is thus a sort of tribute to the tradition. In other words, it might be feminist to reject the term chick-lit, but it could be post-feminist to celebrate it. Take your pick.
An elegant solution to this conundrum has been provided by my former teacher, Professor GJV Prasad of Jawaharlal Nehru University, who has suggested an infinitely finer Indian counterpart: ladki-lit. (If anyone feels that there may be seriousness issues with the term ‘ladki’ much the way of ‘chick’ they should go right now – like just this minute – and read Krishna Sobti’s Ai Ladki and then gulp in the corner in silence.)
So now, here’re the books we feel you may want to read before attempting your super bestselling soon-to-make-those-other-writers-burn-up-in-jealousy ladki-lit. For a more realistic perspective on superstardom through bookwriting, you may want to read this.
Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
The original ladki-lit; a sophisticated modern-day reworking of Pride and Prejudice. Was the epitome of it-ness when it was published in 1996. Written in the form of journal entries, the book is so clever, so funny and so memorable that the eponymous Bridget Jones – coping with the emotional fuckwittage dished out by her commitment-phobic, positively Wickhamish boss Daniel Cleaver and dealing with her Mum’s stunts – is definitely the most recognizable ‘singleton’ heroine in the chick-lit cosmos. And then there’s your hero: Colin Firth. I mean, Mr Darcy. No, wait, I mean Colin Firth. A book you must must read before embarking upon your epic.
The Secret Dreamworld of A Shopaholic, Sophie Kinsella
I always say that this book predicted the Great Financial Crisis of September 2008, way back in 2000. Becky Bloomwood, a charmingly ditsy financial journalist with a dirty secret – massive credit card bills she cannot bear to confront and a penchant for shoes – is the heroine of this book, and her edgy encounters with the impossibly handsome and rich and interesting PR magnate Luke Brandon makes it a veritable romp. (Later, Kinsella has written an entire series of Shopaholic books, in which Becky, luckily, has quit financial journalism to become a professional shopper, though her misadventures still involve retail therapy).
Waiting To Exhale, Terry McMillan
The story of four African-American women – Savannah, Robin, Bernadine and Gloria – who are at different stages in their lives. Published to great acclaim in 1992, the book chronicles their complicated friendships, through love, divorce, parenthood, illness and joy. You may have watched the pioneering film with an all black cast, but you still need to read the book; the freshness of the characters, the treatment of the themes, and the serious craft behind the seeming felicity of the prose, are absolutely stunning.
The Other Side of the Story, Marian Keyes
It was my publisher K who’d recommended Marian Keyes to me, many moons ago. And there could really be no better writer to study for unputdownability, that extremely important trait of popular fiction. I suggest The Other Side of the Story here, a large novel about three very different women – a writer whose first book, a little book that had a very modest first print-run, suddenly becomes a huge sensation; her literary agent, a former NYC cop, who is having an affair with her married boss and coping with workplace politics; and her ex-best friend who’s also writing a novel for all kinds of reasons of revenge – because it is also so much about the world of publishing. But Keyes’ other works are fantastic too, especially because within the framework of chick-lit, she deals with every kind of serious issue there is: domestic violence, drugs, death of a partner, alcohol addiction, rape and its ramifications on a loving marriage.
Almost Single, Advaita Kala
Though Rupa Gulab had written the charming and extremely funny Girl Alone in 2005, and Swati Kaushal’s A Piece of Cake was also published in 2005, it was the runaway success of Advaita Kala’s Almost Single (2007) that put Indian chick-lit on the map. After which, a plethora of voices emerged on the scene, the best of which had something unique to say, and soon enough, sub-genres evolved too: mommy lit, chick lit meets crime thriller, hen lit, the works.
Almost Single is fresh, hip and hilarious, and the misadventures of protagonist Aisha Bhatia – and her two best friends – are sure to make you laugh out loud. (‘I don’t read chick-lit,’ Advaita Kala had joked to me once, ‘I only write it.’ Joyce Carol Oates was her favourite writer at that point and I’d gone ahead and read a whole bunch of JCO novels. You may as well do it too. JCO is one of the most prolific and prodigious writers of her generation – and her novels can teach as much about character and craft, as about discipline.)
Battle for Bittora, Anuja Chauhan
The backdrop of this rollicking and sexy novel is the heat and dust and drama of an Indian election. Fighting for the Lok Sabha seat of Bittora are frenemies with a complicated history – Sarojini Pande, scion of the illustrious Pande clan of Pavit Pradesh (it was her grandmother’s constituency) and the idealistic and heartbreakingly handsome Zain Altaf Khan, ex-Nawab. It deals with every kind of this-will-make-Arnab-Goswami-shriek-tonight issue, but with Chauhan’s trademark humour, Hinglish and perfect sense of twist-and-timing. You must also read this book if you wish to perfect your ear for the Indian idiom – nobody gets it better than Chauhan.
Heartburn, Nora Ephron
This was written long before chick-lit was a thing. But then, with Nora Ephron, queen of the chick flick, you know she can just do something in her own damn style, way back in 1983, and just about invent a genre. Heartburn is an autobiographical novel with recipes (I told you, Ephron invented this now very popular trick too) – about a woman, with one young child and in the seventh month of her pregnancy, who discovers her celebrity journalist husband having an affair with an oddly tall and clever woman called Thelma Rice. Why you must read this book is because there is, perhaps, no better teacher than Ephron in a very important lesson: comedy in the domestic space can be born from the depths of pain and anguish, and in its writing is perhaps its defeat.
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
If there is one book that can teach everything about novel-writing – including how to wear immense research lightly, it is this magnum opus – and thus, we believe it should be read by everyone who wants to write a novel, not just those attempting ladki-lit, though the central theme is, of course, familiar: Mrs Rupa Mehra’s quest for a suitable boy for her slightly rebellious younger daughter, Lata, who is courted by three different candidates over the course of a year-and-a-half in the superbly recreated world of three cities – Calcutta, Delhi and the fictional Brahmapur – in the India of the early fifties.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Well, duh! Chances are you have already read it at some point, in which case I shall recommend a re-reading. In addition to being a fine exposition on love, marriage and the financial anxieties of women, this eighteenth-century classic is one of the greatest novels in English language – and an absolute must-read for women writing fiction.
The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life, Ann Patchett
Writing a novel is serious business – and the road to completion is littered with unfinished drafts. This long essay about the art of being a writer, and confronting the anxieties this life inflicts upon the writerly mind every day and every year and with every new book, is a little gem. (You can buy it independently or you can buy her new collection of essays called This Is The Story of A Happy Marriage, where it has been reproduced in full.)
A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf
Why should you read this book?
To reference a quote from Erich Segal’s Love Story, “Because.”
Devapriya Roy is the author of The Vague Woman’s Handbook and The Weight Loss Club. Her next book, The Heat and Dust Project, co-written with husband Saurav Jha is an account of a hysterical journey through India on local buses, on a very very tight budget. It is due to be published in May 2015. You can follow her on twitter @DevapriyaRoy.
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
At the Delhi launch of her delightful third novel, Those Pricey Thakur Girls, I remember author Anuja Chauhan saying she found the association of her fun, feisty, and definitely strong female protagonists with “chicks” – fuzzy, brainless if cute creatures – problematic. It is, of course, a most moot point.
When my first novel was published, every single interview would open with the chick-lit question. And I would take my chance to get all huffy and opinionated. I’d say that while I did try to consciously play around with the usual tropes of chick-lit – my young vague heroine Mil Chatterjee was not looking for Mr Right, having already married him on a whim before the book begins, for instance – I had no problem with the label as such, since I felt it reclaimed the female roots of the novel.
After all, the early novel had been meant to entertain women readers who suddenly had the leisure (in industrial England they no longer had to make candles or soap for household use themselves and that opened up pockets of time that should not be left to the devil) to read, but apparently their rudimentary education did not quite equip them to deal with ‘high brow’ stuff that men dabbled in – epics, poetry or history. And so the novel was born.
Soon enough, though, women adopted the novel form themselves, and some of the earliest self-employed women were novelists. In a way, an unapologetic flaunting of the label is thus a sort of tribute to the tradition. In other words, it might be feminist to reject the term chick-lit, but it could be post-feminist to celebrate it. Take your pick.
An elegant solution to this conundrum has been provided by my former teacher, Professor GJV Prasad of Jawaharlal Nehru University, who has suggested an infinitely finer Indian counterpart: ladki-lit. (If anyone feels that there may be seriousness issues with the term ‘ladki’ much the way of ‘chick’ they should go right now – like just this minute – and read Krishna Sobti’s Ai Ladki and then gulp in the corner in silence.)
So now, here’re the books we feel you may want to read before attempting your super bestselling soon-to-make-those-other-writers-burn-up-in-jealousy ladki-lit. For a more realistic perspective on superstardom through bookwriting, you may want to read this.
Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
The original ladki-lit; a sophisticated modern-day reworking of Pride and Prejudice. Was the epitome of it-ness when it was published in 1996. Written in the form of journal entries, the book is so clever, so funny and so memorable that the eponymous Bridget Jones – coping with the emotional fuckwittage dished out by her commitment-phobic, positively Wickhamish boss Daniel Cleaver and dealing with her Mum’s stunts – is definitely the most recognizable ‘singleton’ heroine in the chick-lit cosmos. And then there’s your hero: Colin Firth. I mean, Mr Darcy. No, wait, I mean Colin Firth. A book you must must read before embarking upon your epic.
The Secret Dreamworld of A Shopaholic, Sophie Kinsella
I always say that this book predicted the Great Financial Crisis of September 2008, way back in 2000. Becky Bloomwood, a charmingly ditsy financial journalist with a dirty secret – massive credit card bills she cannot bear to confront and a penchant for shoes – is the heroine of this book, and her edgy encounters with the impossibly handsome and rich and interesting PR magnate Luke Brandon makes it a veritable romp. (Later, Kinsella has written an entire series of Shopaholic books, in which Becky, luckily, has quit financial journalism to become a professional shopper, though her misadventures still involve retail therapy).
Waiting To Exhale, Terry McMillan
The story of four African-American women – Savannah, Robin, Bernadine and Gloria – who are at different stages in their lives. Published to great acclaim in 1992, the book chronicles their complicated friendships, through love, divorce, parenthood, illness and joy. You may have watched the pioneering film with an all black cast, but you still need to read the book; the freshness of the characters, the treatment of the themes, and the serious craft behind the seeming felicity of the prose, are absolutely stunning.
The Other Side of the Story, Marian Keyes
It was my publisher K who’d recommended Marian Keyes to me, many moons ago. And there could really be no better writer to study for unputdownability, that extremely important trait of popular fiction. I suggest The Other Side of the Story here, a large novel about three very different women – a writer whose first book, a little book that had a very modest first print-run, suddenly becomes a huge sensation; her literary agent, a former NYC cop, who is having an affair with her married boss and coping with workplace politics; and her ex-best friend who’s also writing a novel for all kinds of reasons of revenge – because it is also so much about the world of publishing. But Keyes’ other works are fantastic too, especially because within the framework of chick-lit, she deals with every kind of serious issue there is: domestic violence, drugs, death of a partner, alcohol addiction, rape and its ramifications on a loving marriage.
Almost Single, Advaita Kala
Though Rupa Gulab had written the charming and extremely funny Girl Alone in 2005, and Swati Kaushal’s A Piece of Cake was also published in 2005, it was the runaway success of Advaita Kala’s Almost Single (2007) that put Indian chick-lit on the map. After which, a plethora of voices emerged on the scene, the best of which had something unique to say, and soon enough, sub-genres evolved too: mommy lit, chick lit meets crime thriller, hen lit, the works.
Almost Single is fresh, hip and hilarious, and the misadventures of protagonist Aisha Bhatia – and her two best friends – are sure to make you laugh out loud. (‘I don’t read chick-lit,’ Advaita Kala had joked to me once, ‘I only write it.’ Joyce Carol Oates was her favourite writer at that point and I’d gone ahead and read a whole bunch of JCO novels. You may as well do it too. JCO is one of the most prolific and prodigious writers of her generation – and her novels can teach as much about character and craft, as about discipline.)
Battle for Bittora, Anuja Chauhan
The backdrop of this rollicking and sexy novel is the heat and dust and drama of an Indian election. Fighting for the Lok Sabha seat of Bittora are frenemies with a complicated history – Sarojini Pande, scion of the illustrious Pande clan of Pavit Pradesh (it was her grandmother’s constituency) and the idealistic and heartbreakingly handsome Zain Altaf Khan, ex-Nawab. It deals with every kind of this-will-make-Arnab-Goswami-shriek-tonight issue, but with Chauhan’s trademark humour, Hinglish and perfect sense of twist-and-timing. You must also read this book if you wish to perfect your ear for the Indian idiom – nobody gets it better than Chauhan.
Heartburn, Nora Ephron
This was written long before chick-lit was a thing. But then, with Nora Ephron, queen of the chick flick, you know she can just do something in her own damn style, way back in 1983, and just about invent a genre. Heartburn is an autobiographical novel with recipes (I told you, Ephron invented this now very popular trick too) – about a woman, with one young child and in the seventh month of her pregnancy, who discovers her celebrity journalist husband having an affair with an oddly tall and clever woman called Thelma Rice. Why you must read this book is because there is, perhaps, no better teacher than Ephron in a very important lesson: comedy in the domestic space can be born from the depths of pain and anguish, and in its writing is perhaps its defeat.
A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
If there is one book that can teach everything about novel-writing – including how to wear immense research lightly, it is this magnum opus – and thus, we believe it should be read by everyone who wants to write a novel, not just those attempting ladki-lit, though the central theme is, of course, familiar: Mrs Rupa Mehra’s quest for a suitable boy for her slightly rebellious younger daughter, Lata, who is courted by three different candidates over the course of a year-and-a-half in the superbly recreated world of three cities – Calcutta, Delhi and the fictional Brahmapur – in the India of the early fifties.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Well, duh! Chances are you have already read it at some point, in which case I shall recommend a re-reading. In addition to being a fine exposition on love, marriage and the financial anxieties of women, this eighteenth-century classic is one of the greatest novels in English language – and an absolute must-read for women writing fiction.
The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life, Ann Patchett
Writing a novel is serious business – and the road to completion is littered with unfinished drafts. This long essay about the art of being a writer, and confronting the anxieties this life inflicts upon the writerly mind every day and every year and with every new book, is a little gem. (You can buy it independently or you can buy her new collection of essays called This Is The Story of A Happy Marriage, where it has been reproduced in full.)
A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf
Why should you read this book?
To reference a quote from Erich Segal’s Love Story, “Because.”
Devapriya Roy is the author of The Vague Woman’s Handbook and The Weight Loss Club. Her next book, The Heat and Dust Project, co-written with husband Saurav Jha is an account of a hysterical journey through India on local buses, on a very very tight budget. It is due to be published in May 2015. You can follow her on twitter @DevapriyaRoy.
