Bushnell, C: Sex and the City

Equal parts soap opera, gossip page, sociological study, and dating manual, "Sex and the City", Candace Bushnell's regular New York Observer column, has attracted a cult following, propelling Bushnell to achieve her own star-status. This collection brings her pieces together for the first time, where they read as a twisted nineties society novel in serial format. A chronicle of the mating habits of our cultural elite, Sex and the City makes a stage of the various launch parties, openings, and celebrity affairs that keep New York's high society amused. It has long since been proven that the later Candace stays out at night, the better the stories she comes home with. In addition to banging on kitchen doors for more champagne, her stunts include shedding her clothes to infiltrate a sex club, plying a roomful of men with rum and marijuana as a prelude to a discussion of menage a trois, and venturing to the most posh of all suburbs to interview married women about their sex lives (only to return to Manhattan and forget her sordid findings with the aid of several cocktails). Sex and the City is a modern-day comedy of errors, a fantastic and sometimes terrifying foray into the hearts and minds of city dwellers. Traveling in packs from parties to bars to clubs, Bushnell's characters carry on the never-ending search for the perfect marriage partner, the most coveted piece of gossip, and, when the night is done, someone to go home with.