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“The Revenge Club” by Kathy Lette
The Revenge Club, Kathy Lette
[Mini Book Review]
How does Kathy Lette do it? Starting with Puberty Blues, which she wrote when she was 17 years old, a score of books later, with The Revenge Club, she remains wickedly witty, with a brilliant mind.
From chick lit to what — chook lit? “I-Don’t-Give-A-Shit-Lit?,” Matilda (Tilly) asks in The Revenge Club.
‘My books are funny, feminist social satire,’ she tells her editor, who rejects her latest novel because she’s gotten too old, is past the “amuse-by’ date. The Revenge Club is certainly that, and more.
In a misogynistic world, four professional women above the age of chick lit — members of the Louche Women band at uni — seek, well, revenge. In addition to the novelist, who has to deal with an editor who wanted to sleep with her when she was younger, there’s an actress married to a human rights lawyer human (we all know who he is, by now!); a distinguished war correspondent who co-hosts a political show with a vacuous talking head, male, who advances on her talent, as she is pushed aside; and a Hollywood executive who is ignored in meetings — “Calm down, cupcake, Don’t let your hormones go haywire,” the company’s new exec says.
Jo (or is it Joe?) tells her skeptical girl friends, “Revenge is like sex — you dunno whether you’re any good until you’ve tried.”
And they’re off. A laugh on every page, every paragraph, every sentence. Kathy Lette is sui generis.
– RB
