by JULIET WATERS

Afew years ago, Garnier paid Sarah Jessica Parker a lot of money to go brunette for two minutes and say, "My new favourite colour? Brown Sugar #63." Candace Bushnell, the writer Parker’s Sex and the City character is based on, is the only writer I can imagine in a hair-colouring ad. Pretty in a Heather Locklear kind of way, there was a time, at least in New York City, where she could have sold a few thousand cases of Garnier. With the recent release of her novel, Trading Up, you can ditch that idea - unless they have a new colour called "Washed Up #2."

Talk about a bad career move. There’s a great TV series based on her not-as-great collection of columns, and a few years ago she wrote a passable attempt at fiction with a collection of four novellas called 4 Blondes. So all Bushnell had to do was coast and she could go to the Vanity Fair Oscar party every year for a long, long time. Instead she writes a book so toxic that the only reason anyone could want to write about it is to make unfavourable comparisons with the TV series that’s heading into its last season.

The problem seems to have started a few years ago when somebody made the mistake of comparing Bushnell to Edith Wharton, the brilliant American writer who wrote morally complex novels about the difficult lives of New York socialites at the turn of the century. Bushnell seems to have taken these comparisons a little too seriously. Trading Up feels like it was intended to be a dark, complex social satire. Instead it’s a tangled, tiresome mess.

There is the occasional flash of insight into the New York trading… oops… dating scene. Did you get that? There seems to be a moral question fuelling this story as to whether Janey Wilcox, the heroine who marries solely for status and money, is a modern-day socialite or a modern-day whore. I vote whore, if only because it makes her seem a little more interesting. Janey is an ambitious Victoria’s Secret model who’s about as captivating as a Victoria’s Secret catalogue - fun to skim, but not someone who can hold your attention for the four hours it will take the average person to read this book.

One of the original blondes from Bushnell’s blonde quartet, Janey, is no stranger to the sport of trawling the Hamptons for a husband. Finally she lands one in the person of Seldon Rose, an entertainmentand- media-mogul type. This will allow her to stay pals with her newfound friend, super-socialite Mimi Kilroy.

Back in Wharton’s day, socialites were a real moral problem since their condemnation could destroy a woman’s life. Because Lili had so few options, she ends up facing actual poverty. These days, if you don’t quite measure up, you look into your soul, change your friends, put yourself on a shoe budget and get a job. Since Janey can’t really be a victim, Bushnell has to turn her into a predator. Eventually Janey makes such a mess of her life she ends up becoming the Bimbo du Jour, that girl who gets invited to the Vanity Fair party for her tabloid appeal (think Monica Lewinsky and Nancy Kerrigan.) It’s an entertaining punishment, but is it really the worst thing that can happen to a New Yorker?

This brings us to what makes Sex and The City, the TV show, so much more palatable. At its core it’s never been solely about sex, or shoes or money or getting a man. It’s just that Old Friendship and the City probably wouldn’t be much of a ratings grabber. Trading up isn’t about friendship, and it’s not even about sex or shoes. It’s just about money and celebrity. If there’s anything good to be said about this novel, it’s that Bushnell has done excellent job of demonstrating how truly unsatisfying these subjects can be.

TRADING UP BY CANDACE BUSHNELL,
HYPERION, PB, 404PP, $24.95