FOR SOME years, the world of romantic fiction has been dominated by the hapless 30-something woman who fears she has missed out on love, only to find The One a few hundred pages later.
But the era of Bridget Jones and her descendants could soon be surpassed by a new trend: divorce comedy. Authors have predicted that the rise of the so-called “silver splitter” — those who divorce later in life — will see novels about finding love a second time grow in popularity.
David Nicholls, the Man Booker Prize nominee, said stories of unconventional families and romance in older age are likely to become more common to reflect “huge cultural change”.
Speaking at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai, Nicholls said the longer lives of readers around the world meant that the prospect of “another 40 years of marriage”, even once a couple hit middle age, could seem “quite scary”.
His latest novel, Us, tells the story of a middle-aged man fighting to save his relationship after his wife Connie threatens to leave.
Nicholls, also the author of One Day, said he had nicknamed it a “divorce comedy”, with a protago- nist created to defy the stereotypes of middle-aged men in love.
Instead of being adulterous, or “desperate to escape from the prison of marriage”, his lead man can think of nothing better than growing old with his wife.
When asked whether he believed love stories featuring older couples would become a new trend, Nicholls told an audience: “I think that may well be the case. Difficult families, unconventional families, families that don’t live in the traditional two-parents-three-kids way; those stories are going to become more common. Fifty isn’t as old as it once was, for men and women. The idea of being another 20, 30, 40 years with someone is sometimes quite scary.”
He added: “It’s a huge cultural change. When I was a kid, I didn’t know anyone whose parents were divorced. It was huge taboo. And now I’m sure that’s changing.” Nicholls was speaking as part of a panel on romantic fiction with writers Adele Parks, Liz Fenwick and Deborah Rodriguez.
Parks, author of The State We’re In and Spare Brides, believes popular novels featuring 30-something women finding love had been the result of similar social change.
She said: “It’s about choices. The same way the ‘30-something, have I missed the boat?’ stories came about because 30-something women suddenly had a choice. A generation ago, 30-something women wouldn’t have had much of a choice.”
The increase in divorce in later life was acknowledged by an Office of National Statistics study in 2013 which found 15,300 over-60s were getting divorced in 2011.
By contrast in 1991, there were just 8,700. It came at a time when the overall divorce rate fell from a peak in the early Nineties.