Nanny Diaries’ authors struggle to repeat success

The follow-up to "The Nanny Diaries," the runaway 2002 bestseller about a New York nanny and her unreasonable employers, was always going to be a challenge for the two former nannies who co-wrote it.

The witty expose of modern parenthood among the upper classes in New York has joined the pantheon of so-called "chick lit" - light reading for women, by women, with aspirations to something more than bodice-busting romance.

So expectations were high for the next book from Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, both now 30 and still living in New York where they met at university, but now not so much ex-nannies as part of the literary and media scene.

And that's where the story gets interesting. The publishing world has revelled in tales of a US$2 million (NZ$2.7m) advance to the authors that Random House demanded they return after "editorial differences" emerged. Literary agents were fired and hired. A new publisher - a division of Simon & Schuster - took on the book, for much less money. Eventually it was published but its reception has been decidedly mixed.

"Citizen Girl" is the story of a 24-year-old feminist desperate for a job who battles to stick to her principles in the brutal men's world of an internet company in New York.

"Critics don't seem to know what to make of it. They seem remarkably comfortable dismissing the feminist aspects of this book," McLaughlin said after a recent book reading where organizers attributed sparse attendance to driving rain.

It might also have been linked to reviews such as that in USA Today which said the authors were a classic "one hit wonder" and said "flimsy characters, bad writing and an absurd excuse for a plot make Citizen Girl a major disappointment."

But McLaughlin and Kraus say they have met many satisfied readers on a recent book tour around the country, particularly among older women, and they put the critical mauling down to discomfort with the stridently feminist elements of the book.

"This gets so little attention at a mass market level," McLaughlin told Reuters. "We felt a huge sense of responsibility. After 'Nanny' there was such a spotlight on us."

MOVING ON FROM NANNY

"The Nanny Diaries" sold over 2 million copies and the movie rights were bought by Miramax for US$500,000, catapulting the authors to celebrity, not least because the real life story of nannies getting their own back was a publicist's dream. 

McLaughlin said they view the new book as a logical next installment after the story of the sassy young college student and nanny. A similar character, now four years older, faces a new set of problems establishing herself in the working world.

These include a boss who speaks in jargon and never spells out exactly what he wants the heroine, called simply "Girl," to do in her new job of rebranding the internet portal to make it more feminist-friendly. And a potential boyfriend who seems to share his frat-boy friends' penchant for strip clubs and porn.

"When I dated someone who's in the financial industry they just took it for granted that it's OK to go to sex clubs," Kraus said. "It's part of business. It used to be you better have a good golf game, now it's you better be OK shoving a five in the g-string."

She said younger women appeared to be uncomfortable talking about feminism, and many would be embarrassed by the label.

"One of the things that was really intriguing to us over the last four years is women we would have considered feminists would say 'I'm a humanist, not a feminist,"' Kraus said.

Kraus and McLaughlin have no such reservations flying the feminist flag, though they are a little concerned about the label "chick lit" which they say critics use disparagingly.

Rather, said Kraus with a smile, "We're lit chicks."

- REUTERS