Books
My Manhattan
by Jolisa Gracewood
In Trendy But Casual, Paula Morris abandons her former territory – incisive, complex portraits of New Zealanders at home and abroad – to deliver a breezy “comedy of bad manners” set in New York. Think Bridget Jones meets Sex and the City with a dash of The Devil Wears Prada. Girl meets, loses, then wins back not just boy but also apartment, job, mates and self-respect.
This novel captures a particular milieu, strategically exaggerated to amp up the satire. Morris worked in the record industry for years, and mines her experiences for comedic gold. Her frazzled, disenchanted protagonist Jane Shore valiantly plumbs the shallows of the PR world as she promotes the hell out of not-particularly-talented performers.
Pity Jane, whose latest client is a fey hip-hop artiste called RapStallion. Accompanied everywhere by a pink-maned horse, he writes vile lyrics with an equestrian theme (his first single: “Giddy Up Bitch”). Actually, pity RapStallion’s girlfriend, who answers to My Lil Pony. I wanted to hear RapStallion’s side of things, but he’s largely a cartoon to illustrate the thankless nature of Jane’s career. The horseshit left over after his album launch at the Guggenheim is a nicely pungent metaphor.
The book bills itself not just as a satire of the PR industry – ripe, low-hanging fruit – but also as “a parody of chick-lit”. This is trickier, given that the genre was effectively born as parody; is there any more comedic juice to be squeezed from spoofing it? Especially if the take-off revolves around a cynical character with few redeeming features and a hopelessly blinkered view of the world.
Are we meant to heckle or cheer for Jane, who substitutes blithe vapidity and shameless self-advancement for Bridget Jones’s clueless sincerity and dogged self-improvement? Breaking the rules of the genre, she doesn’t even end up any wiser or more lovable than she started out. This could be an insurmountable problem – if you don’t dig the chick, why stick around for the lit?
Well, there is a certain voyeuristic pleasure in watching a flawed character make a total idiot of herself. Hang on for an entertaining ride as Jane tumbles at one jump after another. Morris’s narrative drive has its foot to the floor, and despite yourself you will want to find out exactly how Jane will ditch the crappy job, nab the cute guy and score a publicity coup with RapStallion’s unco-operative nag. The slapstick denouement is an unbridled delight. You really can’t beat a shaggy horse story.
Perhaps the most compelling element is the location, location, location: Morris vividly evokes the ur-city in all its hectic glory. I especially liked the grimy Lower East Side loft, full of poseurs and performance artists and random wildlife, that is the scene of both Jane’s greatest humiliation and her most glorious triumph. And Morris is excellent on the details of city life. Whether her characters are crossing the street or ordering food or just coming home to their apartments, you know they’re in Manhattan. With a broad wink, Morris hands us the perfect kitschy souvenir of her hard yakka in the big city PR mines, one that captures the vanity of turn of the century Manhattan in a blizzard of knowing cultural references. In other words, a playful, sparkling snowglobe of a novel.
TRENDY BUT CASUAL, by Paula Morris (Penguin, $28)
TRENDY BUT CASUAL, by Paula Morris (Penguin, $28)
