Reading Time: 1 Min.
When I read the title of Charlotte Stroud’s article “The curse of the cool girl novelist” and the accompanying description of said type of novelist, I had a solid image of what she was referring to. Stroud describes “cool girl novelists” as “depressed and alienated”, “incurably downcast”, and “terminally sad”. It had similarities with “sad girl” literature, a supposedly new genre captivating readers and publishers alike. Sylvia Plath, Otessa Moshfegh, and Sally Rooney are the names that commonly come up when you think of this aforementioned genre. Type ‘sad girl novels’ into Google, and a string of articles will turn up. I came across a post on Reddit which asked if the “hot/sad girl” is a new genre. In the comments to that post on r/books, a remarkable amount of diversity could be seen in the content of the books being mentioned. They ranged from addicts, depressed women, ‘a friend who is a serial killer’ to tradition bound parents pushing for marriage. For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel. As might be evident from this article even being written, I have issues with this label of the sad, mad, or cool girl novelist, because the term “sad girl” works to erase, exclude, and distract. It is a term that flattens and shapes perceptions before one has read the work. A mere cursory look at blurbs and reviews of texts by the authors Stroud mentions shows the sweeping generalisation placing women writers talking about Grenfell, inequality, racism, colonialism, substance abuse, and romances with power imbalances, under one category, as if one commonality in their works renders the rest of the work unworthy. In what I felt was one of the most telling parts of the article, Audre Lorde is included without any further caveats with Sylvia Plath, as if the writings of these women can be compared with ease. Additionally, think for a moment, what the reaction would be if The Catcher in the Rye (1951) and The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) were called “sad boy novels”. It would be scoffed […]
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