columns about life as a single woman in the city
(Bushnell in New York, Fielding in London) into ex-
tremely successful novels. Fielding’sBridget Jones’s Di-
ar y(1996)—an homage to Jane Austen’s novelPride
and Prejudice(1813), right down to the hero’s name,
Darcy—spawned a 1999 sequel,Bridget Jones: The
Edge of Reason, mimicking Austen’sPersuasion(1818),
as well as two films. Bushnell’s novelSex and the City
(1997) was turned into the popular Home Box Of-
fice (HBO) series. Around this same time, a television
show about a single lawyer looking for love,Ally
McBeal, premiered. Soon, novels featuring similar
characters and settings were hitting the best-seller
lists, and the phrase “chick lit” (derived from the slang
word for a young woman and “literature”) was coined.
Chick Lit Characteristics and Themes While it has
been argued that perhaps the first chick lit novel
was African American author Terry McMillan’s
Waiting to Exhale (1992), featuring four career-
oriented black women struggling with relationships
and strengthening their friendship, most chick lit
novels of the 1990’s focused on
white, upper-class, well-educated
women. Many of these heroines
come from single-parent homes
or do not wish to re-create their
parents’ marriage. They find that
their career prospects are not
much better than their love lives:
Protagonists breaking up and/or
getting fired (maybe even more
than once in the course of the
story) are common plot elements.
As sociologist Barbara Dafoe
Whitehead noted in 1999, “Bosses
and boyfriends behave a lot alike
in the novels. They make nice to
you (ever so briefly). Then they
dump you.”
Consumerism is another other
key feature in the novels. As Ste-
phanie Harzewski writes, “Chick
lit virtually jettisons the figure
of the heterosexual hero, with
Manolo Blahniks upstaging men.”
Body image is also an important
topic in the chick lit narrative. For
example, each entry in Bridget
Jones’s Diar ylists her weight on
that particular day and her feelings about it. Finally,
one of the most important elements in chick lit is hu-
mor, which authors use to guide the reader through
the various obstacles (sometimes humiliations) the
characters face.
Impact Chick lit novels offered a new way of look-
ing at life as a single woman. WithBridget Jones’s Diar y
andSex and the City, and the novels that followed,
readers empathized with heroines who were strug-
gling with bad boyfriends and bosses. With the suc-
cess of these novels came debates over whether the
protagonists were truly empowered or deluding
themselves, as well as concerns over the genre’s em-
phasis on consumerism and body image.
Subsequent Events Chick lit novels continued to
sell strongly into the early twenty-first century. In
2001, Harlequin began its own chick lit division, Red
Dress Ink, and in 2005 Warner Books started the
5 Spot imprint for such books. Furthermore, chick
lit grew more diverse, with novels written by African
American, Asian American, and Latina women, as164 Chick lit The Nineties in America
Selected “Chick Lit” of the 1990’sYear Title Author
1992 Waiting to Exhale Terry McMillan
1995 Watermelon Marian Keyes
1996 Bridget Jones’s Diary Helen Fielding
How Stella Got Her Groove Back Terry McMillan
Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married Marian Keyes
1997 Sex and the City Candace Bushnell
Perfect Timing Jill Mansell
Well Groomed Fiona Walker
1998 Animal Husbandry Laura Zigman
Rachel’s Holiday Marian Keyes
1999 Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason Helen Fielding
The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing Melissa Bank
Jemima J: A Novel About Ugly Ducklings
and SwansJane GreenLast Chance Saloon Marian Keyes
Love: A User’s Guide Clare Naylor
Mr. Maybe Jane Green