Hey, Mr. Dream Merchant

I watched a movie on cable yesterday called The Holiday. It was a charming romantic story pairing Cameron Diaz with Jude Law (these two really burned up the screen) and the lovely Kate Winslet with Jack Black, with fine support from the always-wonderful Eli Wallach (92 years old at the time of this film's release).

You might be thinking that there's something wrong with, well, this picture, and that that something in question is Jack Black. My first thought was, "What the hell is he doing in this movie?" I don't know about you, but Jack Black is the last person I'd cast in a romantic comedy. His appearance makes him the antithesis of romance, someone destined to be a goofball or a character actor. But in this movie, it works. The screenwriter cleverly made his and Winslet's characters friends first, a direct contrast to the Diaz/Law relationship, who became intimate first and got to know each other later. Black, not particularly handsome and a little chunky, is so charming that the viewer can accept a gorgeous creature like Winslet falling for him. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out on the Starz network or at the rental store.

That got me to thinking of how romance novels have evolved in recent years. They used to be stories strictly about what my late aunt, who lived in the Hamptons of Long Island, used to refer to as the Beautiful People. Then readers expressed a wish for heroines they could easily identify with, the full figured woman (or as my doctor described me at my visit last week, "overweight.")

But what about the hero? I don't do much reading and haven't picked up a romance at all this year, so I'm curious. Do romance heroes still have perfect physiques? Are all of them still over six feet tall, even if the heroine is 5'1"? In my book Closer Than Close I deliberately made my hero 5'10" and on the pudgy side, and although he later made a halfhearted attempt to get into shape it was clear that his best days were behind him. He was also a postal worker, while the heroine owned and operated a successful hospitality business (no, she wasn't a madam.) I was able to get away with this (maybe because he was extremely handsome, plus in his early 40s), but is this a frequent occurrence? I do know that Melanie Schuster recently wrote a book about a Working Man which has met with much success. I thought that was neat, especially for the Kimani line, which likes heroes with plenty of money. (Hey, it works for Tyler Perry, whose movies often, almost to the point of predicactability), characterize the successful man as a meanie and the working stiff as sensitive and caring.)

What about you? Has your idea of a romance hero evolved at all, or do you still like them over six feet, with six-pack abs, and a full head of hair and chiseled features, no matter what the heroine looks like? Is it okay for the hero to have love handles or a receding hairline if the heroine has a roll or two of extra flesh around her middle? Or is this a double standard? Or am I just being too real for the genre?