The Smarts: Everything’s gone grey

WHO could have predicted that EL James would turn out to be the JK Rowling of erotica? Or that there would ever be such a thing as “the JK Rowling of erotica”?

James’ trilogy of sexually explicit novels, Fifty Shades of Gray, has now reportedly sold around 20 million copies worldwide. It was revealed earlier this week that Mike De Luca and Dana Brunetti, producers of David Fincher’s film The Social Network, have taken on the job of bringing the books to the big screen. Brett Easton Ellis has already offered to write the screenplay, via Twitter, and suggested David Cronenberg as a director. “This is not a joke,” he added, just to clarify.

All in all, it’s a pretty astonishing turnaround for a story that began life as online fan fiction inspired by the Twilight novels, written using the pen name Snowqueens Icedragon – a pseudonym whose endlessly mockable cutesiness may haunt James for as long as she lives.

Then again, why should she care, when she has risen from obscurity to one of the world’s most talked about (and, presumably, wealthy) authors in less than a year? Meanwhile, the rest of us are left floundering around trying to figure out how she did it. It’s been suggested that the rise of the Kindle should take some of the credit – it being a discreet way for women to read erotica on public transport. And yet the paperback edition has been a huge hit too.

The most persuasive explanation is that James has managed to create a Mills &Boon novel for the 21st century – easy-to-read romantic fantasy aimed at frustrated women, for an age in which sexually explicit material is no longer taboo. Why did no one else think of that?