Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction PDF
Preview Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction
• ic I Copyrighted Material Copyrighted Material • ic I The New Woman's Fiction by Edited Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young New York London Copyrighted Material Published in 2006 by Published in Great Britain by Routledge Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison Avenue 2 Park Square New York, NY 10016 Milton Park, Abingdon Oxon OXI4 4RN © 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 109876543 International Standard Book Number-! 0: 0-415-97502-6 (Hardcover) 0-415-97503-4 (Softcover) International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-415-97502-5 (Hardcover) 978-0-415-97503-2 (Softcover) Library of Congress Card Number 2005013904 No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system. without written permission from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chick lit : the new woman's tiction I edited by Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-97502-6 (alk. paper) -- ISBN 0-415-97503-4 (pbk. · alk. paper) I. American fiction--Women authors--History and criticism. 2. English tiction--Women authors--History and criticism. 3. Women--Books and reading--English-speaking countries. 4. Women and literature--English-speaking countries. 5. Single women in literature. 6. Young women in literature. 7. Women in literature. I. Ferriss, Suzanne, 1962- II. Young, Mallory, 1952-Ill. Title. PS374.W6C48 2005 813'.54093522--dc22 2005013904 informa Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com Taylor & Francis Group and the Routledge Web site at is the Academic Division of lnfonna pic. http://www.routledge-ny.com Copyrighted Material For Ann and Mary Ellen, Ada and Rowena Copyrighted Material Copyrighted Material Contents Acknowledgments lX Introduction SUZANNE FERRISS AND MALLORY YOUNG Part I The Hatching of a Genre: Origins and Influences 1 Who's Laughing Now? A Short History of Chick Lit and the Perversion of a Genre CRIS MAZZA 17 2 Tradition and Displacement in the New Novel of Manners STEPHANIE HARZEWSKI 29 3 Mothers of Chick Lit? Women Writers, Readers, and Literary History JULIETTE WELLS 47 4 Narrative and Cinematic Doubleness: Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones's Diary SUZANNE FERRISS 71 Part II Free Range: Varieties and Variations 5 "Sistahs Are Doin' It for Themselves": Chick Lit in Black and White LISA A. GUERRERO 87 vii Copyrighted Material viii • Contents 6 Long-Suffering Professional Females: The Case of Nanny Lit ELIZABETH HALE 103 7 You Are Not Alone: The Personal, the Political, and the "New" Mommy Lit HEATHER HEWETT 119 8 Chick Lit Jr.: More Than Glitz and Glamour for Teens and Tweens JOANNA WEBB JOHNSON 141 9 Ya Yas, Grits, and Sweet Potato Queens: Contemporary Southern Belles and the Prescriptions That Guide Them ELIZABETH B. BOYD 159 10 Bridget Jones and Hungarian Chick Lit NORA SELLE! 173 Part III Sex and the Single Chick: Feminism and Postfeminism, Sexuality and Self-Fashioning 11 About a Girl: Female Subjectivity and Sexuality in Contemporary 'Chick' Culture A. ROCHELLE MABRY 191 12 No Satisfaction: Sex and the City, Run Catch Kiss, and the Conflict of Desires in Chick Lit's New Heroines ANNA KIERNAN 207 13 Fashionably Indebted: Conspicuous Consumption, Fashion, and Romance in Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic Trilogy JESSICA LYN VANSLOOTEN 219 14 Supersizing Bridget Jones: What's Really Eating the Women in Chick Lit ALISON UMMINGER 239 Afterword: The New Woman's Fiction SHARI BENSTOCK 253 Selected Bibliography 257 Contributors 261 Index 265 Copyrighted Material Acknowledgments We want to thank our editor at Routledge, Matthew Byrnie, for seeing the promise in our first fledgling proposal and coming along with us as it took wing. Suzanne benefited from the support of the Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences at Nova Southeastern University and the Department of English at the University of Trier. Mallory is grateful to the Department of English and Languages at Tarleton State University and to Mark Shipman and Donald L. Zelman, who provided release time for completion of the manuscript. At home, our thanks go to Steven and Craig for wise guidance, editorial expertise, and all-around support-and for never letting us take ourselves too seriously. Their competing title and cover mock-up featuring us as biker chicks will always make us laugh-and will never be revealed publicly. Finally, we acknowledge the fabulous women who have inspired us: friends and colleagues, teachers and students, writers and artists-and especially our mothers and sisters, to whom this book is dedicated. ix Copyrighted Material
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