Lili Wilkinson

I’ve talked about my new-found love of the romance genre before, but here I go again. I’ve been reading a lot, not just of the genre, but about it. I’ve learnt some awesome things, like how romance far outstrips normal commercial fiction in terms of sales. And always has – a first edition Jane Austen had a print run nearly ten times that of a first edition William Wordsworth. Looking back at history also gives us an idea of why the genre is so maligned – Lady Novelist was one of the first respectable professions for women, which gave some women an income and therefore independence. The stories are inevitably about independent women too (the good ones, anyway), women who make choices based on what they want. In a world where the first rumblings of the suffragette movement were starting to be heard, it’s suddenly very clear why some people thought that novels were very dangerous things to be consumed by women.

Did you know that Nora Roberts has had 173 New York Times bestselling novels, but the New York Times has only reviewed her twice? This seems kind of insane.

ANYWAY, none of that is actually from the book I’m clutching today.

Beyond Heaving Bosoms: A Smart Bitches Guide to Romance Novels is the book written by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan, the two writers who head up the Smart Bitches Trashy Books blog. It’s about the romance genre – its strengths, its weaknesses, its horrendously ugly covers*. The book is funny and irreverent and excellently filthy. In it, I learnt about the romance hero’s Mighty Wang, and the heroine’s Magic Hoo Hoo. I learnt that no romance writer seems to know where the hymen is. And I discovered the term “man-titty” (think Fabio bare chested romance covers), and I’ll be forever grateful for that.

As a relative newcomer to the genre, the book was delightfully funny and informative. I learnt about the rapeyness of Old School Romance, and how the genre changed in the 70s along with, well, just about everything else for women. Much like the Smart Bitches themselves, the romance genre is now savvy, sassy and empowering.

If you want to learn about the genre in a light, fun but still solidly awesome way, as well as get a whole bunch of romance book recommendations and participate in a Choose Your Own Romance Adventure story that may or may not end up with tentacle sex, then I highly recommend Beyond Heaving Bosoms.

*Oh, and as I have learnt – those covers bear absolutely no resemblance to the plot, story or characters. None at all. They’re usually not even from the same historical period.

Maureen Johnson writes exactly the kind of snappy, intelligent, funny teen chick lit that I like to read (and write). So when I heard she was starting a series about Jack the Ripper… I was a little disappointed. No funny? No contemporary? No teeny romance?

But I was wrong!

The Name of the Star has all of those things, PLUS a London boarding school, some Historical Colour, life-threatening danger AND (teeny spoiler) a little paranormal mystery.

Rory Deveaux is a Louisiana teenager, recently moved to London to attend a posh private boarding school. But everything is not alright in London. A serial killer is on the loose, mimicking the brutal 19th century crimes of Jack the Ripper. Rippermania takes over London – everyone is equal parts paranoid and excited. But the case is a stumper. How come none of London’s seventy squillion CCTV cameras have spotted the killer? Who is that strange man that Rory saw lurking around on the night of the murder, and why didn’t her room-mate see him? And, what was that? Sekrit London police squad of spunky young people who share an Unusual Ability? I’m in.

Dear Maureen. When is the next one out? Can it be sooner? Thanks, Lili.

(you can read the first 78 pages on Maureen’s website)

(This post is part of an occasional series where I talk about books I like. They’re not reviews – I’m calling them book clutches, because they’re all books that I want to clutch close to me.)

Here’s a conversation I’ve had a couple of times.

Person: Something something Miles Franklin Prize something Peter Carey.

Lili: Meh.

Person: So who do you think is Australia’s finest writer, then?

Lili: It’s a tie between Margo Lanagan and Ursula Dubosarsky.

Person: No, I meant literary writer.

Lili: It’s a tie between Margo Lanagan and Ursula Dubosarsky.
It’s true. I think these two women are Australia’s finest writers. Not finest YA writers. Finest of them all.

The Golden Day is about eleven schoolgirls who, in 1967, are taken on an unauthorised excursion by their teacher, Miss Renshaw. They meet up with a charismatic gardener/poet, who takes them to see some Aboriginal paintings in the hidden caves of Sydney Harbour. Or does he? The girls return to school without Miss Renshaw, prompting panic – scandal – talk of murder. This book is Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Getting of Wisdom and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. It is Charles Blackman’s ‘Floating Schoolgirl‘. Like The Red Shoe and Abyssinia, The Golden Day wraps you up in a kind of warm, yellow-tinted floaty dreaminess. Like a dream, you don’t feel like you (or anyone) is entirely in control of what they say and do. Like a dream, you watch the world slip by with a kind of golden fuzzy calm. Like a dream, you could tumble into a nightmare at any moment.

If you’ve read White Time, Black Juice or Red Spikes, you don’t need to read on. Yellowcake is more Margo Lanagan awesomeness. There is nobody who can write a short story the way Margo can – nobody who can wrap you up in a whole new world and make you feel like you’ve known these characters, their rhythms of speech, their secret dreams, their homes and families and daily routines – all in twenty pages. Whether it’s the unique fairytale reimaginings of ”The Golden Shroud,” “Night of the Firstlings,” or “Ferryman”; the fierce humanity of “Into the Clouds on High” or “The Point of Roses”; the postapocalyptic ganglands of “Heads”; or the almost postmodern “Eyelids of Dawn” - every one of the ten stories immerses you in unique worlds that are often grim, but always filled with a kind of savage, redemptive joy.

(This post is part of an occasional series where I talk about books I like. They’re not reviews – I’m calling them book clutches, because they’re all books that I want to clutch close to me.)

“I liked breathing it in.”

And he doesn’t get it. So I say

“That air. The air afterwards. I wanted to breathe it in. It felt right to breathe it in. Because we were breathing them in, weren’t we? And the buildings. We were breathing it all in. And I thought, there’s a part of this that’s actually a part of me now. I now have that responsibility. I am alive, and I am breathing, and I can do the things this dust can’t do.”

I’ve always been a big David Levithan fan – Pink is dedicated to him. So when I saw a copy of Love is the Higher Law*, I immediately snatched it up.

It’s the story of three teenagers, Claire, Jasper and Peter, who are in New York City on September 11, 2001. Perhaps not the cheeriest of subject matters, but in typical Levithan fashion, the book is so imbued with hope and love and friendship and humanity that it outshines the fear and the tragedy, and while the book is very sad, it is ultimately uplifting and life-affirming. I didn’t need to read the author’s note to realise that this is a deeply personal story. And that’s the novel’s greatest strength. The events of September 11 are personal to everyone – we all remember where we were when it happened, even those of us on the other side of the world. But Love is the Higher Law takes that a step further and lets us really be there, without feeling like we’re voyeurs or tourists.

___________

*I would like to know why, whenever I see the title of this book, U2′s One doesn’t pop up in my head. No. It’s this instead.