Candace Bushnell has a new contingent of fans, thanks to a pair of young adult novels that are prequels to her best seller “Sex and the City.” “The Carrie Diaries” and “Summer and the City” introduce readers to a teenage Carrie Bradshaw years before she became a famous Manhattan sex columnist. The CW is creating a series based on “The Carrie Diaries” that will air later this year.
Pitted against Lipstick Jungle during the 2008 TV season, “Cashmere Mafia” holds its own with a familiar but still welcome focus on four powerhouse New York women whose fierce devotion to their jobs is matched only by their unwavering friendship with each other.
Based on the Candace Bushnell novel of the same name, Lipstick Jungle is what the ladies on Sex and the City might have been like, had they been married characters rather than New York singletons. Brooke Shields stars as Wendy Healy, a high-powered movie mogul who can’t get through a day without talking to (or lunching with) her best friends Nico Reilly (Kim Raver, 24) and Victory Ford (Lindsay Price, Beverly Hills, 90210).
“Kate & Allie: Season One” introduced a new type of nuclear family to the 1980s: a pair of divorced women living with their children together in a somewhat cramped New York brownstone. A mid-season replacement in 1984, the sitcom starring Susan Saint James as Kate McArdle and Jane Curtin as Allie Lowell was both a critical and commercial success. The shoulder pads, clunky answering machine, and hairdon’ts give away the decade, but the storylines of grown-up best friends supporting and, at times, sparring with each other during personal and professional crises are timeless.
Wanna meet the woman behind Sex & the City? Meet Candace Bushnell at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Barnes & Noble, 1441 W. Webster, when she’ll read from her latest book Four Blondes (Atlantic Monthly Press, $12). Meanwhile, she opens up about nagging, her boyfriend and the contents of her purse.
Candace Bushnell is walking down Michigan Avenue smoking a Merit. She is chic, blond and a dead ringer for Peggy Lipton during her “Mod Squad” heyday. A woman walks by pushing a pram occupied by a tiny baby and an equally small dog. Bushnell sneaks a quick peek and says, “It makes me want to have a baby just so that I could accessorize it with a dog.”
