SHE’S the voice of Manhattan women, the soul-mate who understands their see-saw love lives, the queen who knows all about shoe porn and toxic bachelors.
Candace Bushnell, in person, is a lovely sight and perhaps another symbol of the blurred line between fact and fiction.
Creator of the awesome foursome in Sex and the City, she was at Barnes & Noble in Union Square on Monday evening for a reading of her latest book One Fifth Avenue.
That’s the address of a grand Art Deco apartment building on Fifth Avenue, inhabited by the social haves and coveted by the ambitious have-nots.
“Real-estate envy is universal,” Bushnell said. Even in the earlier days, “somebody realises that somebody else’s cave is bigger.”
A roof over your head is basic but much more so in New York City, where home ownership is premium.
“It’s wired into our DNA about seeking shelter,” Bushnell said, “but for some people, the more glamourous the shelter, the better.”
By using the venerable address as the setting of this book, Bushnell has finally acknowledged that the one thing more significant than sex in this city is real estate — and the two are, in more cases than not, intertwined, according to the book review in The New York Observer.
That newspaper, by the way, was the start of Bushnell’s Sex and the City column in 1994 that led to the TV and movie versions.
Bushnell seems like any other writer who aspires to be a great author.
“If I could be Evelyn Waugh, my life would be perfect,” she recalled telling herself when she was younger, as she had deeply admired the British author.
These days, Bushnell has been compared to Henry James and Edith Wharton. “That’s really flattering and nice but they write much better than I do,” she said.
Last week, Page Six Magazine put her on the cover wearing a US$5,500 (RM18,700) Bill Blass dress, calling her “Big Apple Babe” and quoted the “former party girl” as saying that “there’s nothing harder than being single”.
Bushnell, who will hit the big Five-0 in December, acknowledged to the magazine she had had botox treatment and that she was not the least bothered about being labelled a cougar. Hubby, a ballet dancer who is 10 years younger, was at Monday’s book reading with her. They married six years ago.
The audience that evening, mostly women, evidently adored her. They devoured her latest book while waiting for her arrival.
“I have loved her since Sex and the City. I like the fact that she is not afraid to show the weaknesses and the strengths of women,” said Dynelle Skinner, a 32-year-old in-house PR executive for a cosmetic company.
Through Bushnell’s writings and the TV series, Skinner said, she had learned to be more creative and bold; both in fashion and sexuality. “We are not afraid to approach men. We can be romantic, we can be aloof.”
Furthermore, Skinner acknowledged a problem with shoe shopping.
“There are times I would tell myself that the bills can wait. I just have to buy that pair of shoes!” she said, laughing.
Bushnell told her fans that her mother’s death from breast cancer led to a period of mourning. “I was depressed, thinking about life and loss, and what life added up to,” she explained.
“Here in New York, the old is replaced by the new. People come to New York. Everybody has a story. You need to figure out what your story is, who you are, and where you are on the ladder of success.”
One Fifth Avenue, she said, was an actual building which she used to walk past, fantasising that she would live there one day.
“Fantasies do nourish you. It keeps people going but as you grow older, you might wonder whether it is worth it,” she said.
Her favourite character in her latest book is the 43-year-old Mindy Gooch who, as head of the apartment board, is so ambitious and hell-bent in wanting it all that “she forgot to smell the roses along the way”.
Through her readings of classics, Bushnell said she found that people had not really changed. “All these are stories about people in the city. I am struck by the similarity of people then and now.”
In a way, that means that people have never learned their lessons. And, in the pursuit for social prominence, a character in One Fifth Avenue put it well: Money wants what it can’t buy. Class and talent.
