SATC gets a MAM makeover

Candace Bushnell’s new book is such a thinly disguised version of her life as a woman of a certain age rediscovering the joys of Manhattan from her Upper East Side apartment that some publications reviewed it as “non-fiction” before quickly correcting their error and putting it in the “fiction” category (it didn’t exactly help that the back cover describes this as a “memoir”, compounding the confusion). It’s an easy mistake to make, though. The narrator of this “novel” is transparently a fictional avatar of Candace Bushnell herself. And in case the reader has any doubts, the middle-aged, single white woman at the centre of the story asks the obvious question as early as page 18.

And the question is: “Is there still sex in the city?”

This is clearly the hook to reel in the original Sex and the City fans, those women who bought so wholeheartedly into the TV series based on Bushnell’s book about a group of women in their thirties having unabashed sex in the city. Now, two decades later, it stands to reason that these fans would be ready for an updated version of SATC, as the series was affectionately referred to, with a cast of women who are now navigating the harsh realities of a menopausal world.

And certainly, it looks as if we are in SATC land as Bushnell dives straight into gynaecological territory, with her doctor recommending she try the “Mona Lisa” treatment that “restores thickness and elasticity to the vagina” after she has gone for many years without sex. (Apparently this works so well on some women — like a female version of Viagra almost — that their ageing husbands are no longer enough for them and they run off with younger men!) It’s not clear if Bushnell signs up for this treatment but — at the urging of a young editor who wants her to write an “experimental” piece — she does sign up for Tinder. It doesn’t really go well; on her second date with a Brooklyn guy called Jude, she is stood up because the poor fellow ends up in the emergency department after doing too many drugs.

And that’s where this “novel” begins to unravel into straight-up magazine journalism. Bushnell gathers a group of “Tinderellas”, young women who are disenchanted with Tinder, and are sweetly wistful as they hear about the good old days when men actually went on “dates” before demanding sex. It’s the kind of piece that wouldn’t be out of place in an issue of Cosmopolitan, with lots of talk of oral sex to add some spice to the story.

It doesn’t help either that Bushnell often veers off into making listicles, Buzzfeed-style, telling us — to quote just one instance — about the way the Bicycle Boys of her younger days have mutated into different types. There is the Family-Man Billionaire-Tech Guy, The Pack Rat, The Bachelor Boy… So on and so tedious.

Then, there is a whole section devoted to Cubs — young men who are attracted to older women, albeit those who have had their nips and tucks, hair extensions, cosmetic work and lots of Pilates, and look considerably younger than they are. The main danger of going to bed with these Cubs, explains Bushnell, is that you may wake up to realise that you are friends of their parents.

Just when you are thinking that the Cubs section may be a way to segue into the world of SATC, Bushnell goes off on an inexplicable tangent about shopping on the Upper East Side, which ends with her buying a pair of shoes that are too big for her and being scammed into spending $4,000 on face cream by an exotic Russian woman who assures her she will never need Botox or fillers again. (This from a woman who has been pleading financial insecurity just a few pages earlier.)

Hope may well flutter in a reader’s heart when Bushnell decides to up sticks and move to the “Village” (the Hamptons, clearly) with her new squad comprising Sassy, Kitty, Queenie, Tilda Tia and Marilyn. But anyone who is looking for an updated story featuring middle-aged versions of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha is doomed to disappointment. For one thing, the new Candace coven is drawn squarely in two dimensions, so its members don’t register as fully realised human beings. So lightly sketched are these characters that it is hard to care about them, even when unspeakable tragedies come calling in their lives.

The primary theme of female middle-age, menopause, hardly gets a mention even though the MAM (Middle-Aged Madness) that Bushnell talks of owes a lot to the mood swings and irritability that this condition brings with it. But the long and meandering tale ends with a happily ever after with Bushnell scoring a MNB (My New Boyfriend) of her own even as she celebrates her 60th birthday. “Sixty had arrived,” she announces, “and it was going to be fabulous.”

Pity you can’t say the same about this book.

Is There Still Sex In The City?; Author: Candace Bushnell; Publisher: Little, Brown; Pages: 272; Price: Rs 599