The Great Taste of Straight People

by Lily James

While academics argue over who actually invented the word "postfeminism," writers like Lily James are engaged in the task of creating what comes after the feminist movement. Beyond the Buzz, chick-lit postfeminist writing has created some of the hippest eye-catchers in contemporary fiction. This fiction is funny, wry and new. As Eurudice commented, "It is a must-have for girls that have considered selling out."

In The Great Taste of Straight People, Lily James spanks the eternal theme of Chaos vs. Order. Her characters are True Believers, obsessed with the desire to organize relationships, behaviors, and entire lives around earnestly illogical systems. These stories are sincere yet always surprising, brainy yet always entertaining.

Genres: Literature

194 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 1997

Reviews

[Nate D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Killers, lovers, sisters, bandmates. Writing with the messy mythopoetic energy of a kind of punk Angela Carter, or perhaps what Kathy Acker might have contributed to the early days of blogging had she had the chance, Lily James' "postfeminist" writing is smart, unpredictable, incisive in ways that dare you to find it frivolous, or else frivolous in ways that provoke you to pull the meaning from it. Perhaps when the writer manipulates archetypes so freely and aggressively, the reader implicitly pastes over the gaps with preconceived notions and the resulting story becomes a dance between the two. This is another from Fiction Collective 2's Black Ice imprint and it's pure hyperkinetic entertainment, engaging even when pushing to the choppy edges of comprehensible narrative.

Meanwhile, I just learned that "Chick Lit" was coined by fellow Black Icer Cris Mazza and this glorious pop-experimental extravaganza was Mazza's "epitome" of the genre. I have a feeling that definitions shifted shortly after this, but wishfully love imagining that this raw, radical, playful work could actually achieve best seller market saturation a few years later in place of all the Bridget Joneses of the world. Sadly, Lily James published only one novel after this and seems to have dropped off the map. Come back, Lily James, we need more of this.