Jojo Moyes: ‘Chick lit’ is a misogynist label for my books
Classifying all stories about women who find love as ‘chick lit’ or ‘romance’ does a disservice to readers and the female experience, says bestselling English novelist Jojo Moyes.
Although her wildly popular novels always include a love story, Jojo Moyes says it's 14 years since she published a work of ‘romantic fiction’.
There’s “a subtle misogyny” to dismissing any novel that features a woman falling in love as ‘chick lit’ or “just romance”, the English writer says.
Moyes’ latest book We All Live Here - which follows a 42-year-old divorcee's "messy" life with two wayward daughters and an elderly stepfather - is striking a chord with female readers like none before, she tells Susie Ferguson.
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On international book tours this year, lines of women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s have come up to Moyes feeling “joyful” about how well We All Live Here reflected their own experience.
“I do get a lot of smiley women but this one has been off the scale.”
In fiction, women in midlife are often either really annoying mothers, horrible mothers-in-law or downtrodden wives, Moyes says.
In We All Live Here she wanted to show that often they're also pretty amazing - “capable and funny and loyal and strong and basically holding up the sky for everybody else.”
Moyes hopes We All Live Here's quick ascent to number one on the English book charts will send a message to publishing companies about the demand for stories about the real-life experiences of 40-something women.
Penguin Books Ltd
