We all know there are more than just four types of women - but it’s easy to organize in case there’s a war.Īt a nearby brasserie, between rehearsals and her 7 p.m. It’s not quite the Hello, Dolly! return to “the lights of 14th Street,” but it’s close enough: eight times a week, for the next ten weeks, she’s inviting close to 500 people into a variation of her living room remounted at the Daryl Roth Theatre on 15th Street (and Park Avenue, of course). And, well, just like that … (sorry) she’s back. Her 2019 book (also titled Is There Still Sex in the CIty?) detailed Bushnell’s return to dating after her divorce from New York City Ballet principal Charles Askegard and saw her leave the Manhattan shuffle, at least partly, for the tranquility of Sag Harbor.
Watching the stage show during previews, I was struck by the 62-year-old’s impressive career: a life made up of leveraging the natural talent and right-place-right-time fortune that got her writing gigs at 19 into a lasting aesthetic empire of up-front sexuality and social acuity. Unlike Carrie, who floated from brunch to brunch without much attention to deadlines or finances, Bushnell was a hardworking freelancer with an eye on the bottom line. It was gritty, darkly humorous, and keenly anthropological. Then finally, after 94 episodes (multiplied by at least seven rewatches), I sought out a first edition of her original Sex book (easier than you’d think) - inspired by the news of her upcoming one-woman show, Is There Still Sex in the City?, opening Tuesday - and devoured it.
She was the “real” Carrie Bradshaw, the writer behind the ’90s New York Observer columns who’d accidentally struck print oil (those columns made up the 1997 best-selling essay collection) and reaped HBO gold. I grew up watching Sex and the City, and really, that was enough for me.
I idolized Candace Bushnell without knowing the facts.