by JULIET WATERS

My favourite episode of Sex and the City is, of course, the one where Carrie Bradshaw’s book is reviewed by Michiko Kakutani, the famously reclusive and powerful book critic at The New York Times. It’s got my favourite line (“Fuck Michiko Kakutani!”) and my favourite scene (when Samantha gets Miranda’s “asshole” baby to stop crying by nestling her heavy-duty vibrator in the crook of his arm.) But I also agree with Kakutani’s assessment (fictionalized or not): “All in all I enjoyed living in Miss Bradshaw’s world for a few hours.” Critics have to have their guilty pleasures too, and I’ve enjoyed more than a few hours in Carrie Bradshaw’s world, even if I wouldn’t be caught dead in her clothes.

In real life Kakutani hasn’t been so kind to Candace Bushnell, the inspiration for the role of Carrie. Kakutani’s evisceration of Trading Up, Bushnell’s first novel, is a classic slash and burn. If Kakutani does eventually review Lipstick Jungle, however, my guess is she won’t be so harsh. Bushnell has traded in the subject of sex for the subject of power and Kakutani would probably feel right at home with the main characters in this book, numbers 8, 12 and 17 in a New York Post feature on New York’s 50 most powerful women.

Bushnell can’t write, but few novelists can match her for the smart scenario. Rumour has it that a TV series based on Lipstick Jungle is already “in discussion,” but it seems inevitable. After Desperate Housewives has run its course and Edie Falco and Lorraine Bracco are out looking for jobs, how can this not become the next cultural phenomenon? This to me would be reality TV, a show that advances the theory that when you have as much money and power as these women do, it’s very unlikely you really will be severely punished for the “terrible sacrifices” you’ve had to make. Could it be that much like their male counterparts, the only severe punishment they’re likely to ever experience is one chosen at the hands of a leather-clad boy toy?

Sure, there will be much ink spilt arguing against the questions this book raises: Can women who put career first and men and children second find themselves as satisfied with life as men with this strategy seem to have been for centuries? Will they end up with dissatisfied, whiney stay-at-home husbands who will have to be dealt with much in the same way as whiney stay-at-home wives have been (expensive gifts, and/or huge divorce settlements)? Will male supermodels make themselves as easily available to powerful, rich women as female supermodels make themselves to men? (If there’s money and the hope of an easy life... uh... probably.) But most importantly, will the day come when there are enough powerful women in the world that we can stop assuming that only women who hate other women can break the glass ceiling?

Bushnell, for all the frequent lapses into her soulless, irritating reverence for New York, will always make her way back to the bestseller list because she remains a devoted advocate of female friendship. It’s sentimental, but it’s what keeps her in the bookshelves next to Anne of Green Gables.

Lipstick Jungle, if nothing else, is at least a death knell to the brand of chick lit Bushnell invented. Whether one likes or despises Bushnell’s characters, whether one finds them one-dimensional and would prefer to wait for the TV series, these are the women who are probably going to be dominating popular culture for a long time—women who have decided that if they prioritize their well-being, their dreams and their financial independence, at the end of the day, the men and the kids will still be breathing. And for now, no matter what the media and psychologists tell them, that’s probably good enough.

LIPSTICK JUNGLE BY CANDACE BUSHNELL,
HYPERION, HC, 353PP, $33.95