Trendy But Casual
By Paula MorrisPenguin, NZ$28 | Reviewed by Amy Brown
FROM THE author of wonderful Hibiscus Coast comes a “comedy of bad manners”, a parody of chick-lit, an irreverent morality tale set in the Big Apple. Narrator, Jane Shore, is a mid-thirties workaholic in PR, obsessed with appearances, labels and efficiency. While she has a reasonably-sized apartment in West Village, an up-to-date wardrobe and some success at work, Jane is, as far as she knows, happy. But, as in all good plots, a character that is happy at the beginning doesn’t remain so for long.
After a homeless woman calls her “ugly on the inside” (in a scene reminiscent of the moment in The Princess Bride when the crone calls Buttercup “the queen of putrescence!”), the aspects of life which Jane values begin to slip away. The owner of the West Village apartment decides to sell. A Christina Aguilera-sized bimbo is given all the good jobs at work after Jane happens to vomit everywhere and get a celebrity horse arrested at a function. Her ignorance is exposed in front of possible-boyfriend-material when the question of the difference between flora and fauna is raised.
Through a series of Bridget Jones-esque calamities, Jane Shore eventually finds herself homeless, jobless, penniless and thus wardrobeless. To add insult to injury, her best friend and sister, both conspicuous for their unemployment, lack of style and talent for bludging, are moving up in the world. Can humbleness and hard work save Jane from a future of unwashed hair, daytime TV and tracksuit pants? Well, yes. A change in attitude, a bit of good luck and a concerted effort to finish reading Jane Eyre, see Jane Shore through to her own rather glamorous happy ending.
Having wolfed down this light, fluffy treat I was left with a nagging sense of elitist guilt. Was what I’d just read a parody of chick-lit or was it, in fact, the real deal? Surely its quick-sharp dialogue, candid heroine and self-consciously cliché turn of events placed it in a league above the likes of Marion Keyes? I like to think that anything can be a valid subject for a book, providing it’s written well enough. So, a novel can have its charmingly ungraceful heroine, predictable turn of events and happy ending without descending into sentimentality. This is one of the ways in which Trendy But Casual works. Morris’ contempt for the celebrity-obsessed and belief in the healing power of literary classics is gently pushed throughout the novel and is, in the end, the factor which makes this a parody rather than genuine chick-lit, which stops the characters from seeming too stock, and which gives substance to the jokes.
The other question this reader was left with is this: what is Ngati Wai, Aucklander, Morris doing writing a whole novel from the point of view of a New Yorker, set in New York, with no mentions of our own fine country? Because she’s now based in New Orleans, does it mean that Morris is no longer a New Zealand writer writing New Zealand novels? To be honest, I don’t believe that questions of this nature are at all relevant to the literary value of a book. However, as globalisation sweeps away easy definitions of nation and region, it is an interesting question to keep one’s eye on. Has New Zealand reached a point in its literary history where its brightest new novelists are allowed to write 300 or so pages ignoring their country of origin without causing a stir, or is it to do with money? Whether Morris is selling out to the American market or broadening the definition of New Zealand literature, she has written a novel worth reading and that is the main thing.
