Chick Noir

Since its inception chick lit has often come in for a bit of a bashing. Many people dismiss it as fluffy, vapid, disposable and even badly written works of fiction. I will be the first to put my hand up and agree that a lot of books in this genre are not worth the pretty paper that they are printed on but on the flip side there are some very good books out there. Authors such as Jane Green, Sophie Kinsella, Louise Bagshawe, Mike Gayle, Robyn Sisman and Lisa Jewell turn in amazing stories and serve chick lit well. There is a new modern fiction category on the block; chick noir which is post modern chick lit with an edge. This differs from chick lit which is all about getting the guy and living happy ever after while chick noir is much more dark and features single women who grow to be happy in their own skin and not obsessive about being married. The pioneer of this exciting genre is Jane Fallon, author of Getting Rid of Matthew and Got You Back. Fallon's talents do not just lie in fiction, she is an established TV producer and has worked on fantastic shows like EastEnders, This Life and Teachers which are infamous for their portrayal of strong women.

Both Fallon's books, Getting Rid of Matthew and Got You Back cover the tales of infidelity and unravels the lives of the wife and the mistress. Getting Rid of Matthew was released last year and secured itself on Richard & Judy's summer read and went to become a bestseller. I am sure that the eye catching cover with a lady in a pencil skirt and stilettos cannot have hurt. However there is no denying that Getting Rid of Matthew is a great piece of fiction. The book tells the story of Helen whose lover, Matthew turns up on her doorstep and announces that he has left his wife. From there you expect the story to take the conventional approach of focusing on the couple and their trials and tribulations but remember that this is not chick lit but chick noir and that calls for a few twists and turns. Hence the entrance of Matthew's wife, Sophie who is picking up the pieces of her broken marriage. Then there is the small matter of Helen deciding that Matthew and her are not right together and hatches a plan to return him to his wife.

Fallon manages to turn Helen who some people would define as a self centred cow into a very sympathetic character. Compelling and extremely funny are the words I would use to describe this book as the writer takes you through the story with style as well as a lot of substance. It is so good that a certain Jennifer Aniston has acquired the rights for her production company, Plan C with plans to turn it into a film. Fallon's new book, Got You Back offers more of the same with two women; wife and mistress colluding to plot the down fall of husband James who has been leading two separate lives. So just as women are leading their lives as they please on TV shows such as Sex and the City and films like The Women, it seems that we have now reached that place in books.

To find out more about Jane Fallon, check out an article in The Guardian here.

From Here to Paternity

Nick Hornby, Mike Gayle, Matt Beaumont, Ben Elton and John O'Farrell have all played their part in shaping the image of modern male writers. Hornby and Elton have even had some of their books made into films. Enter Matt Dunn, a former hack who managed to bang out his first novel, Best Man while sunning himself in Spain. His second novel, The Ex Boyfriend's Handbook was so good that it bagged him a shortlist for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award and the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy. The Margate native's talent lies in creating believable characters who are aggravating, fascinating but also very funny. His latest title, From Here to Paternity introduces us to Will Jackson, a general lad about town who is determined to become a Dad by hook or by crook. He employs very dramatic tactics to fulfill his dreams while entertaining us along the way. After totally falling in love with his last book, The Ex Boyfriend Handbook, I decided it was time to take Mr Dunn to task.

It isn't everyday that you read a book about a guy who is desperate to be a Dad. How did you come up with the idea?
Because while several of my female friends were desperate to have kids, none of my male friends were (or would admit to it), and the fun in writing for me is to take some of those traditional male/female dilemmas and flip them around, so I started thinking, if there was a guy who actually felt like that, how would he behave? What would he do to achieve his goal? And it developed from there, really.

Modern fiction aimed at young women is obviously massive over here and in the US. Where do you think the male version fits in?
Well, judging from the emails I get, my books are read both by women and men, and I've been told that women read my books to get an insight into the workings of the male mind, while men read them just to take comfort in how pathetic we are when it comes to dealing with the opposite sex.

A few authors I have spoken to find the term Chick lit insulting, what do you think of the term, Bloke lit?
It's less insulting than Dick Lit, I suppose! I don't really mind how I'm classified, although if there's a possibility that it excludes part of your readership then that's obviously not a good thing. But these novels are hard to classify anyway - read the classic lad-lit novel, High Fidelity, and you'll see how that appeals to both men and women. Similarly, something like the Shopaholic series is so well written and funny that it has a much broader appeal than the pure 'chick lit' market. It's always other people who want to categorise, rather than the writers themselves, so there's not a lot you can do about it. Plus it's a bit strange that if blokes or lads can never talk about their feelings, then why should books about how they feel be classified as bloke or lad lit? All I try and do is write as good a book as possible, and hope that it doesn't exclude anyone from wanting to read it.

Your books tend to convey friendships between guys and how they behave towards each other. How do you manage this in your books?
By reproducing the kind of interactions I have with my friends. It's really how we are, you know!

The lead protagonist, Will is certainly a character. Do you know anyone like him?
Most of my characters are composites of people I know. It makes it easier to write them, and hopefully they come across as more realistic characters. And there's perhaps more than a little bit of me in him too.

How did you get into fiction writing?
I always wanted to do it, ever since I wrote something at school, read it out in front of the class and they laughed. It just took me longer than I'd planned before I actually decided to sit down and start writing a novel.

What authors do you admire and why?
There are so many, but in particular, Nick Hornby, for showing me there was a market for the kind of thing I wanted to write. David Mitchell, for being perhaps the most brilliant novelist today - I'd pay to read his shopping list. Will Self, simply because Great Apes is a work of genius.

What advice would you give to budding authors out there?
Start typing. It really is as simple as that. If you can manage a thousand words a day, you'll have finished your first draft in a few months. Read everything you can in your genre to give you an idea of the level required to get published. And edit yourself mercilessly.

The life of an author must be a busy one; can you describe a typical day?
Er... I sit at my laptop and write. For a couple of weeks a year it's busy, when you're involved in promotion and so on, but most of the time it's just you and your computer.

Where do you do most of your writing? Desk, garden, coffee shop?
Desk, staring at a blank wall. It's the best way. Distractions are a bad thing.

What project are you working on now?
My new novel. Sort of a sequel to my second book, The Ex-Boyfriend's Handbook.

From Here to Paternity is out now. You can check out Matt Dunn's website here.

A Brand New Friend

Now I am a great book lover and I have stumbled across the works of Mike Gayle. Gayle, who is better known as the brother of newsreader, Phil Gayle has been writing hit books for years but I have never gotten round to reading them. Feeling bored one day I took a browse through my book collection (which I admit is pretty huge) and I found his latest book 'Brand New Friend.' I got right into it and have been unable to put it down. 'Brand New Friend' is the story of Rob, a bit of a commitment-phobe, who decides to take the plunge and move to Manchester to be with his girlfriend. Everything is fine, he lives in a lovely house with his lovelier girlfriend and is really enjoying his work but there is one thing - he doesn't have any mates in Manchester. As much as he tries he is finding it hard to make new ones and is dismayed when his girlfriend puts an ad in a local magazine for him to make new mates. Then his luck changes and he meets Jo who he clicks with but the problem is that Jo is a lady. This book really raises questions about friendships and the relationships we make. The only question I have to ask is how can a guy be so good at writing scintillating chick lit. I am halfway through this book and it is fabulous and I am off to buy the rest of Gayle's titles.