Escaping the “Time Bind”: Negotiations of Love and Work in Jayne Ann Krentz's “Corporate Romances”

Abstract

Kathleen Woodiwiss' The Mame and Flower (1972) Do you think you could have remained chaste for long with face and body you have, my sweet? he murmured against her hair. were meant for love, and I am not saddened because I snatched you before other men tried you, nor do I feel guilty over pleasure you've given me. Pray do not blame me for being infatuated with your beauty and wanting you for my own. It would be task for any man not to. You see, in truth, m'lady, I am your prisoner, caught in your spell. (45) Jayne Ann Krentz's Sharp Edges (1998) This is no way to resolve an interpersonal conflict, [Eugenia Swift] warned. follow your theory of management, [Cyrus Colfax] said against her mouth. I'll follow mine. (223) In Fantasy and Reconciliation: Contemporary Formulas of Women's Romance Fiction (1984), romance critic Kay Mussell describes Kathleen Woodiwiss' The Flame and Flower (1972) as a story of sexual and exotic adventure or domestic melodrama in heightened and exciting setting (38). The uncontested favorite of Janice Radway's Smithton readers,1 this novel marked development of romance formula from the purest and simplest romantic type to more plot-detailed and erotically explicit bodice-ripper,'' epitomizing archetype of romance fiction for contemporary nonreaders of romance. Epigraph I reveals key characteristic of conventional romance's formulaic construction of gender relations. Despite fact that Captain Brandon Birmingham, novel's hero, is literally holding heroine, Heather Simmons, prisoner aboard his ship, and despite his enormous economic, political, and social power over orphaned and impoverished Heather, he defines himself as her prisoner. What makes his language particularly ironic here is context of its utterance. He has just returned to his quarters to find Heather tidying up: needing some task to occupy her thoughts, she began putting order to cabin, which was littered with clothing (45). Although Heather Simmons is his captive, Captain Birmingham claims himself metaphoric prisoner in his infatuation, surrendering himself and his ship, space of both his home and work, to Heather's charm and conversion. The scene foreshadows novel's inevitable formulaic conclusion: Heather domesticates Brandon by transforming him from domineering rake to man who values marriage and family above all else. Epigraph II, passage from Jayne Ann Krentz's Sharp Edges (1998), reveals that substantial changes have occurred in romance genre in twenty-six years that have passed since publication of The Flame and Flower. While historical romances remain popular among readers, early 1990s marks emergence of contemporary romances featuring ambitious working heroines with substantial economic power. As successful white-collar professionals who are collaborators at work yet lovers on side, Eugenia Swift and Cyrus Colfax appear equals both professionally and personally. What is intriguing about their dialogue, as opposed to mutual captive narrative of Brandon and Heather, is absence of rhetoric of home as haven. The language of workplace is transferred, playfully and almost seamlessly, into private space of bedroom. Conflicts of feeling between lovers are to be resolved through theories of personnel management, for in novel's contemporary setting, distinct boundaries between public and private, or between work and home, begin to disappear. In his seminal analysis on development and significance of popular fiction, Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (1976), John G. Cawelti notes that when literary formulas last for considerable period of time, they usually undergo considerable change as they adapt to different needs and interests of changing generations (4). …