Absolutely divine!' How Jilly Cooper changed the world one bonkbuster at a time

"But that's a sidebar what was striking about seeing Rivals as a box set was how well Cooper's universe had aged. The chronicles distilled the 80s: the shoulder pads and puffball skirts; the obsession with class, aristocrats sneering at the Technicolored nouveau riche, both ignoring everyone else while they snipped about how warm their champagne was; the sexual politics, with harassment and assault so routine they were practically characters in their own right, a double act you could trust to move the plot along."

"While Cooper might have inhabited this age completely, she was never the proverbial fish not noticing the ocean because it's everywhere. She had a humanity and an observational intelligence that you maybe wouldn't guess from listening to her speak. Everyone, from the dog to the pony to her parents to her French exchange's brother, was always absolutely sweet unless, that is, they were absolutely divine."

"People got groped and worse in Cooper's work, but that was never OK it's surprising how OK it is in many far more literary books of the era. She was upper-middle-class, which for practical purposes meant that her father had to work for a living, but she'd have described the classes more by their mores. The middle classes worried about everything, all the time what other people might think, mainly and the upper classes didn't give a well, she'd have said stuff."

Jilly Cooper died unexpectedly at 88 after a half-century career that sold around 11 million copies. The Rutshire chronicles, beginning with Riders in 1985, introduced memorable characters such as Rupert Campbell-Black. A recent Disney+ adaptation of Rivals brought the stories to a new generation. The books distilled 1980s culture: fashion, obsessive class divisions, and casual sexual harassment and assault presented as recurring plot elements. Cooper combined raunchiness with clear moral judgement, an observational intelligence, and a humane portrait of characters. Class distinctions were framed by mores: middle-class anxiety about reputation contrasted with upper-class indifference.

Read at www.theguardian.com