This spring, no fewer than five chick lit titles feature young widows as protagonists. It remains to be seen whether the two debut hardcovers—Lolly Winston's forthcoming Good Grief and Cecelia Ahern's just-published PS, I Love You—and three paperback originals will mark the emergence of a viable new sub-genre like "mommy lit" (think Alison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It). But Barnes & Noble buyer Sessalee Hensley has already termed the coming season "the spring of death."
The convergence may be a sign of how hard it is to come up with an original idea when multiple publishers are all focusing on the same thriving genre. But it also raises the question of whether these rebounding heroines can keep the female empowerment novel fresh.
"It's probably a good sign, because it means publishers are starting to realize there isn't just one subject to write about for this particular female audience," said Lynda Fitzgerald, events coordinator for the 10 Barbara's Bookstores in the Chicago area. There's also a chance, she added, that the serious subject matter may draw some readers who haven't yet dipped into chick lit. (Like most booksellers, Fitzgerald was quite comfortable with the term, which publishers tend to avoid when talking about their books.)
Whether or not widow heroines lend gravitas to the oft-dismissed genre, the five books—each published by a different house—underscore how intensely competitive the category has become. "The whole copycat phenomenon is really frustrating," said Jill Cadogan, buyer for Willow Books in Acton, Mass., admitting that it's often difficult to discern which titles will stand out in a given season.
Catching Buzz
So far, freelance journalist Lolly Winston's tale of a woman who finds herself a widow at 36, then moves to Oregon to start her life over has captured the lion's share of early praise. "Good Grief is my pick hit for spring," said Barnes & Noble's Hensley, who is arranging for galleys to be sent to the managers of the chain's 643 stores and has ordered enough copies for a front-of-store stepladder promotion.
Likewise, independent booksellers voted the novel the #1 Book Sense pick for March/April. "I thought Good Grief was head and shoulders above the rest because it deals with several issues, including a character going around the bend with Alzheimer's," said Kathy Ashton, who edits the newsletter The Inkslinger for The King's English bookstore in Salt Lake City, Utah.
"In terms of marketing, there was definitely a full court press," said acquiring editor Amy Einhorn of Warner's 4000-copy ARC mailing and Winston's eight-city pre-sell tour in January and February. The book has an announced first printing of 150,000 copies and will be published on April 13. (See PW's First Fiction feature, Jan. 26.)
PS, I Love You, about a 30-year-old widow whose late husband thoughtfully left behind a series of letters to be opened after his death, had a smaller first printing of 70,000 hardcovers. Like many of the biggest novels in the genre, it was acquired in a much-buzzed-about deal—U.S. rights to two books for a cool $1 million—followed by a film option to Warner Brothers with Forrest Gump producer Wendy Finerman attached.
Prior to its publication last week, Hyperion introduced 22-year-old author Cecelia Ahern to booksellers on a six-city tour in September. The house also played up her status as the daughter of Ireland's prime minister in its media pitches, in targeted mailings to Irish-Americans and in ads in such publications as Irish Connections and Irish Voice. In addition, the publisher recently sent out a mailing of candy "conversation hearts" to encourage booksellers to include the bright pink book in Valentine's Day promotions.
But for some booksellers, the prototypical chick lit cover—a stylized cut-out of the lips and chin of a young blonde woman—was an obstacle rather than a selling point for a novel more reminiscent of Erich Segal's Love Story than Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary. "I have a tendency not to pick up pink books," said Kathryn Clark, buyer at Square Books in Oxford, Miss. "At this point, you pretty much have to be beaten over the head to be convinced to read books in that genre, but I thought this one was intelligently and maturely done."
Trade Paperback Pitfalls
The three trade paperbacks featuring widows were much less familiar to booksellers. Valerie Frankel's The Not-So-Perfect Man (Avon Trade, Feb.), Caren Lissner's Starting from Square Two (Red Dress Ink, Mar.) and Bil Wright's One Foot in Love (Fireside, Mar.) all relate the adventures of widows re-entering the dating scene. The most obvious difference between them is that Lissner's protagonist is 29 and Frankel's is 35, while Wright's is 40 and the sole African-American widow. Hensley was the only bookseller contacted by PW who characterized her buys for all three as "very strong," adding, "there's a market there and we're going to try to develop it."
The relative invisibility of the three paperbacks seems to point to the pitfalls of the format, which keeps the price low for a youthful audience. "You have to be really careful with those trade paper originals," said Cadogan of Willow Books. "There are just so many of them now. If I'm not going to order at least 10 copies, I don't order any."
While the question of what all these fictional widows mean for the future of chick lit remains open, it may be easier to figure out why they're emerging now. Lisa Iannucci, founder of Young Widows and Widowers (www.youngwidowsandwidowers.com), noted that when she was widowed in her 30s in 1999, there were few resources targeted at her age group. But after 9/11, young widows were suddenly visible and newsworthy, and since then, both nonfiction and fiction titles on the subject have increased. Said Iannucci, "We've come out of the shroud."
—with reporting by Emily Chenoweth
