A New Era for Black British Rom-Coms: Taylor Dior-Rumble’s The Situationship
Taylor-Dior Rumble on her journey to publishing, South London supremacy and wanting to write something cute for the girlies.
“Dating in London feels like a competition of who cares the least. And that's because everyone's scared of being vulnerable.” This is the sentiment professed in Taylor-Dior Rumble’s debut novel The Situationship. When prompted to describe the novel using three TV shows, Rumble claims excitedly that it has flavours of Issa Rae’s hit show Insecure, oldie but goodie Ugly Betty and BBC Three’s latest, Dreaming Whilst Black. The book follows 20-something Tia who decides to brave the dating apps after the love of her life shows up with a girlfriend. She soon connects with handsome photographer Nate who is everything she is looking for, but as their relationship progresses, it soon becomes clear that they aren't on the same page. Unsure of where they stand, can their Situationship turn into something real?
Taylor-Dior Rumble’s journey to publishing began when she was just a schoolgirl, “I’ve wanted to be an author since primary school,” she explains. “I love Jacqueline Wilson. I loved reading and writing and English lessons at school. That passion followed me all the way through my schooling.” Things really changed when she discovered the internet and Tumblr, foraying into fashion blogging in her late teens. Before Influencing became the massive industry it is now, Rumble was channelling her inner Carrie Bradshaw, being invited to Fashion Week, with dreams of working at the likes of Elle or Vogue one day. After taking a gap year she applied for an apprenticeship scheme at BBC news and was successful, “I've always been a bit of a grafter, I’m happy to start at the bottom somewhere and just grow.” After the scheme she was kept on, and worked at the BBC for the next three and a half years. During that time her, now agent, had seen her work on Twitter and got in touch, “I blanked her first email because I thought it was spam!” she tells me. “I had initially worked on a nonfiction book proposal which didn't really go anywhere, but fiction felt out of my comfort zone at this point. I'd been a tiny cog in this massive machine.”
“Dating in London feels like a competition of who cares the least.”
As well as Tia’s dating life, a major focus of the book is Tia’s job in the media and her experience in the workplace as a young Black woman, much of which reflects Rumble’s own experience working in journalism. “It was definitely inspired by a lot of very real feelings that I and my peers had experienced,” she says. In 2022, a BBC Staff exodus was reported of women of colour who were frustrated with trying to see their futures in an industry that doesn’t seem to want to move with the times. Rumble admits that on hearing this, “part of me was almost relieved to see that I had been right to feel this way. There were so many times I was thinking, Is it all in my head? Am I just a bad journalist? It is validating that other Black women have reached out to say they’ve felt the same way.”
However, Rumble didn’t want to focus solely on the hardships of navigating modern life as a Black woman, she instead wanted to lean into the softness and vulnerability of her characters. “Before I started writing the story that we have now, I was hellbent on basically writing some kind of trauma porn, for lack of a better term. That was all I saw around me, it was those kinds of stories I saw being commissioned and greenlit not just in publishing, but film and TV as well,” she says. However after dealing with hard times in her personal life she instead wanted to write something to “escape a little bit” from her more serious reality which is how The Situationship was born. “To be honest, I just wanted to write the stories that I had been craving and the kind of books that I turned to when I was going through it. I naturally gravitate towards romantic comedies. The classics like Girlfriends, Living Single, Insecure.” In search of escapism, Rumble also turned to the writing of Jasmine Guillory whose books she loves. “A lot of her protagonists are these independent and career driven Black women who also happen to fall in love and have a great romance.” That is not to say that The Situationship is pure fluff – Rumble has been able to reflect a reality where Tia’s trials and difficulties can coexist with the love, joy and friendship in her life. There is something that feels radical about a Black woman who does get to have it all, and Rumble wanted to kind of create that moment for the Black British girls too. “I wanted a story where we could recognise ourselves and our culture and our banter.”
Black British romantic comedies are painfully few and far between, but Raine Allen Miller’s Rye Lane which was released in March this year is a shining example. It was praised as a glowing portrayal of and ode to South London. Authenticity in setting is similarly important for Rumble as she declares herself to be, “one of those annoying South Londoners that think that South London is the best place in the world because it is. I love where I live, it's not perfect, but it's perfect for me. So to reflect a South London that I know and love so much was very important to me but also it was very natural to me. This is where I grew up. And this is where I feel comfortable and where I feel safe. It’s my home.” She was particularly striving for realism when it came to the dialogue, “I wanted the characters just to sound like me and my friends and our conversations. The dialogue in the books started off as scripts, because I've never written a fiction book before so that was the easiest way for me to map out the dialogue.” Resisting the temptation of catering to the white gaze, she states that she was particularly conscious of, “reflecting how we are naturally away from work when we're not code switching. Authenticity was really important to me.”
“There is something that feels radical about a Black woman who does get to have it all.”
In Tia, Rumble’s has created a realistic fleshed-out protagonist who is willing to be vulnerable but also able to stand her own ground. “I wish I could be like Tia,” Rumble tells me. “She was inspired by different parts of my friends but she’s also a manifestation of how I wish I could have been in past relationships. She’s soft and can let her guard down and there’s a lot of braveness in that. Dating in London feels like a competition of who cares the least. And that's because everyone's scared of being vulnerable. Because no one wants to get hurt but you have to take that risk in order to find the right person or do away with the person that isn't for you. So you can make space for the right person that is supposed to come into your life.”
The Situationship is out now.