What Are We Reading?
December 2007
We seem to have entered the season of darkness, an auspicious time to be curled up under an afghan, reading books. On my nightstand sits a stack of admirable and challenging reading: Sherman Alexie’s Flight, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road that, guiltily, I still haven’t quite got to, and Dana Spiotta’s Eat This Document. I’ve been three-quarters of the way through Charles Baxter’s excellent The Art of Subtext for a couple of weeks now. So, what have I been reading? British chick lit, of course. Yeah, they’re fluff and romance, and I could be completely deluded, but something about the British English, as well as the sense of humor (often dry, occasionally bordering on farce), seems to make these stories seem wittier than their American counterparts. The outcomes are equally as predictable, but if you’re going to read this genre, you might as well admit that you want the obligatory overcoming of obstacles to true love so that everyone will have (most) everything they want (or deserve) at the end. A few of my favorite authors:
Sarah Mason – She’s become my favorite. Her characters are quirky and often laugh-out-loud funny, the action teeters enjoyably toward farce, but Mason handles emotion well, too. I highly recommend all three of her published novels: Playing James, Party Girl, and Society Girls.
Hester Brown – I picked up her first novel, The Little Lady Detective Agency, knowing I was going to be sitting in an airport most of the day. I wanted something guaranteed not to stir up anxieties. I was pleasantly surprised by how engaged I became with the characters, the witty dialogue, and the ways Brown plays with the genre conventions. I enjoyed, too, the sequel, Little Lady, Big Apple. Apparently a third installment is on the way. I’m not so sure the story has anywhere else to go, but I’ll probably have to check it out.
Katie Fforde – Of the three, her work is probably the most blandly formulaic (reluctant female gets won over by fabulous example of British manhood). She’s written about 12 novels with uneven results. Her best efforts have truly witty dialogue, a sense of place (usually the small towns of rural Cotswolds), and supporting casts of interesting characters—artists, chefs, aristocrats, unruly teenagers. I recommend Living Dangerously and Second Thyme Around.
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Rosemary Zurlo-Cuva lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where she works as a free lance journalist and teaches creative writing to middle schoolers. A fiction writer and poet, she is at work on her first novel, Travel for Agoraphobics.
