De Coster was given one month and after some intense writing and researching, she came up with Oh Jackie O. In this novella, Jessie, a talented young writer, goes to New York with her bland and uptight sister. She has written several texts for an exhibition on Jacqueline Onassis at the New Museum. Jessie anxiously awaits the opening of the exhibition and decides to indulge in a few shows to calm her rattled nerves. Luckily, it is fashion week, but unfortunately, she bumps in to her nemesis Sabine...

In 2006, de Coster already wrote a parody on chick lit, Eeuwige Roem (Eternal Fame), so she isn’t a complete stranger to the genre or to mocking it at least. “My idea of chick lit,” she says, “is about ambitious women who reach for the stars and long for status and love, so I toyed with that. That’s why I chose the New York Fashion Week as my setting because it’s so glamorous and iconic. I really enjoyed researching this story and delving into the lives of these high-society women who spend their days having
broccoli massages and sipping champagne. I personally love the absurd and writing the story gave me a chance to embellish it, a perfect fit for chick lit.”

Love, fashion and gossip aren’t just ingredients of the genre; they are also parts of real life, which is why De Coster feels she hasn’t written traditional chick lit. “Women will always be catty or jealous of other women,” she continues. “It’s a recognizable human pattern but I think contemporary chick lit does have the tendency to use stereotypes. Sabine for example, is a real bitch but she’s just doing her thing and gets to where she wants to be. By being competitors, Jessie and Sabine stimulate one and other to reach their goals. It would be too easy to write a story where only good things happen to good people.”

Chick lit frequently becomes unrealistic in depicting the so-called lives of contemporary women. But by incorporating several topics from this month’s issue of Feeling into the novel, De Coster has kept her novella grounded. Other subjects that she tackles, such as sisterhood, jealousy or status, don’t necessarily just apply to chick lit but are universal themes that are part of modern women’s lives.

The kinetic combination of style and tragedy on the other hand, is something you don’t encounter so often in real life, unless you’re Jackie O, making her the perfect title character. “Jackie O is a real icon,” De Coster tells me, “and I loved breathing new life into this character because most people know her but they don’t know much about her. She has led an intriguing life which I discovered while doing research for my new novel.”

Despite its popularity, not many Flemish authors have profited from the success of chick lit because it is still considered a lowbrow genre by many. “Chick lit is a label for mostly crap,” De Coster insists, “but there are also some snappy stories out there. I’m not an expert and when the genre uses cliché role models or thought patterns such as women love shopping, champagne and spending their days waiting for Prince Charming, it really annoys me.

"On the other hand, I do believe chick lit can also promote emancipation by being self-deprecating and by doing away with certain stereotypes. It’s a genre with a very wide scope but a lot of people still believe that you either write literature or crap. Which is nonsense really, because I personally love to diversify. I’m proud of Oh Jackie O but I think that many people still think of chick lit as an inferior genre.”

Oh Jackie O is nonetheless a perfectly proportioned helping of chick lit. Short, sassy and superbly paced, Saskia de Coster has done the unthinkable; she has created an entertaining and well-written piece of fiction about the fashion-conscious female psyche.