By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
October 11, 2000
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.”
It is a very “Sex and the City” moment. And yes, she’s kidding.
At 5-foot-6 and zero pounds, the 41-year-old writer is as funny and sarcastic as the characters on the HBO series “Sex and the City,” which is based on her 1996 book of the same name.
And for the record, no, Carrie Bradshaw–the sexy journalist Sarah Jessica Parker portrays on the show–isn’t Bushnell’s alter ego. They just happen to share a penchant for funky, designer clothing and speak in the exact same enthusiastic cadence. (Bushnell, who was a consultant for the first two seasons of the series, no longer works with the show.)
“I spent some time with Sarah Jessica [during the first season of the show] and she’s adorable,” says Bushnell, who was in Chicago Tuesday promoting her latest book 4 Blondes (Atlantic Monthly Press, $24), which is in its fifth week on the New York Times Bestseller list. “But she’s not playing me. A friend of mine who’s also a writer was like, `Tell everyone that everything in the book is real! It’s more interesting.’ But I’m like, `Bret, I can’t do that.’ ”
Bret? As in Easton Ellis?
“Yes,” she continues. “What I write about is a world I know. But it’s not my world.”
These days, it seems as if everyone would like to live in her world. The runaway success of “Sex and the City,” currently in its third season, has made Bushnell a star. Her two-month book tour was kicked off with a party hosted by Donna Karan and attended by the series’ Kim Cattrall during the New York Fashion Week shows.
And in Chicago, she had a full day of interviews starting at 8:30 a.m. at WFLD-Channel 32’s morning show and ending with a reading at Barbara’s Bestsellers on Wells as part of Chicago Book Week.
A seasoned reporter whose columns for the New York Observer set the precedent for Sex and the City, Bushnell is comfortable on either side of the microphone.
After Mancow Muller grills her about everything from love to labias on WKQX-FM (101.1), she comments, “He wasn’t nearly as racy as I thought he’d be.”
Back at the lobby of the Hotel Monaco, she easily chats with well wishers who compliment her outfit. She has paired a conservative beige, cashmere sweater set with a funky scalloped miniskirt. Her purple Prada handbag matches her Jimmy Choo boots.
When she stands up to hug a friend, a couple of slackjawed young boys ogling her go through puberty. They look away only after she cocoons herself in a Versace coat and Burberry cloak.
Despite her glamor girl image, Bushnell insists that she is not girlie. She never goes for manicures, refuses to wrap her body in seaweed and winces at the idea of working out.
“I hate going for beauty treatments,” she says, showing off her unpainted fingernails as proof. “I just can’t sit still for that long. I don’t know how to put on makeup to this day. Even when I was a kid, I was a tomboy. My friends and I would ride our horses and just end up smelling like them, but we didn’t care. I guess I’m not that different today. Except I don’t smell like a horse now.”
Born and raised in Connecticut, Bushnell says she knew from the age of 8 that she would grow up to be a writer. She studied writing at Rice University in Houston before transferring to New York University, where she graduated.
“Sex is a good book, but 4 Blondes is a lot better because I feel that I’ve grown a little bit with it,” she says. “Some critics have been vicious about it, saying that the characters are shallow or whatever, but the book is meant to be funny. I think it’s a real satire about modern life.”
One of the characters in her latest book goes off to England to meet her Prince Charming. Likewise, Bushnell has been in a yearlong relationship with an English businessman.
Before a reporter can draw conclusions, she quickly adds, “I didn’t meet him in England. There are no parallels!”
***
A glance at Candace
You’re already familiar with Carrie Bradshaw, the spunky heroine of Candace Bushnell’s book Sex and the City and the HBO series of the same name. Here’s the 411 on Bushnell, who insists that she and Carrie aren’t one and the same.
*Foot fetish: While Bradshaw will spend her last penny on spiky, Manolo Blahnik heels, Bushnell favors creations by Jimmy Choo and Dolce & Gabbana.
*Pet peeve: Don’t refer to Bushnell as “fortysomething.” “I’m 41!” she says. “That’s not fortysomething. When I’m 45, that’ll be fortysomething. This age thing is funny. I’m a proponent of telling the truth about your age because I think it helps other women feel good about themselves.”
*Blond ambition: “I’ve been changing my hair color since I was 15,” she says. “I had his mousy brown hair and I would put Sun In in it and lemon juice. It turned orange all the time, but I thought it looked great.”
*Tick tock, do you hear the biological clock?: “I haven’t been married and I’m just kind of calm, about it. For most women, the journey is not really to find a man, but to find yourself.”
*My characters, my friends: “I don’t know these women [that I write about],” she insists. “I just write in a very personal way. That’s just my style. Sometimes my friends will say, `All these women are me!’ But they’re not any one of them.”
