How To Un-Marry a Millionaire

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I’m read­ing and enjoy­ing some “chick-lit” at the moment–or as a review­er on Ama­zon called it, “the per­fect blend of chick-lit and bitch-lit”–entitled “How To Un-Mar­ry a Mil­lion­aire”.

Per­son­al dis­clo­sure time: the book is the first nov­el by my good friend, script-writer and film pro­duc­er Bil­lie Mor­ton. I’ve been mean­ing to read it for a while now, and it’s cur­rent­ly sup­ply­ing wel­come relief from the tedi­um of read­ing ECB min­utes as I draft my next Busi­ness Spec­ta­tor col­umn.

Hav­ing agreed on Twit­ter with Max Keis­er that Phyl­lis Diller (and not Joan Rivers) was the true pio­neer of the mod­ern female com­ic, I’m now enjoy­ing laugh­ing at lines that not mere­ly Diller but even Hed­da Hop­per would have been proud to pen.

The book fol­lows the fortunes–or attempts to acquire them–of three very dif­fer­ent women: the young Ricky, who is deter­mined to escape her trail­er-trash upbring­ing; the late-thir­ties Suzanne, who has done what Ricky aspires to but has a cur­rent­ly ten­u­ous hold on her acqui­si­tions, and the age­ing Philip­pa, who now prefers the com­pa­ny of her dog.

Ricky

“Not every­thing can be excit­ing, Ricky,” Pearl had said, putting on her old­er-sis­ter-face. “Your prob­lem is you’re always look­ing for every­thing to give you a hard-on.” It was true. Ricky hat­ed all the mun­dane things that every­one else took for grant­ed. The lit­tle stuff that got them through the day, then the week, and final­ly anoth­er god­damn year, until there were no more years left.

Suzanne

As usu­al, Hel­ga was top­less, with her famous­ly extra­or­di­nary tits fly­ing at full mast. They bobbed pret­ti­ly as she leaned to pour her­self cof­fee, and as an after­thought offered to pour Suzanne one also. Suzanne thanked her and slid onto a chaise, the soft cot­ton of her sarong cov­er­ing her leg­endary legs. Unlike her Ice­landic break­fast part­ner, she pre­ferred her own curves to be hint­ed at – just enough to whet the imag­i­na­tion. The mind, after all, she knew – with the excep­tion of Helga’s – was unde­ni­ably our most inter­est­ing organ.

Philippa

“Hel­lo, Suzanne,” she said, cring­ing at the sound of the annoy­ing mid-Pacif­ic, pho­ny plum voice at the oth­er end of the line. “It’s Philli­pa, your moth­er-in-law. Whose face have you been sit­ting on this morn­ing?”

 Ah! But unfor­tu­nate­ly Drag­i’s pro­nounce­ments beck­on, as my own writer’s dead­line approach­es. I’ll return to Ric­ki, Suzanne and Philip­pa after I’ve put my col­umn to bed–and an echo of Bil­lie’s turn of phrase may well turn up in my next piece.