ONE FIFTH AVENUE
Candace Bushnell
Voice/Hyperion
Fiction
Hardcover: 9781401301613
Paperback: 9781401341053
The pursuit of money and the extravagances it can buy, and what it is like to live when money is no object, is the fascinating social commentary written by one of New York’s premier 21st-century novelists, Candace Bushnell. Those who possess old money and new money are striving for status, art, publicity and New York real estate.
The reader is seduced by New York City and the fantasy that if you can make it in the Big Apple, you can make it anywhere. Money, odd couple relationships and age are recurring themes with Carrie Bradshaw-style commentary by Bushnell: “Perhaps too much money was like too much sex. It crossed the line and became pornographic.”
Bushnell’s fifth novel shines the spotlight on an eclectic group of people who currently live at or who are scheming to live at One Fifth Avenue. Bushnell’s characters are socialites, writers, gossip columnists, actresses and hedge-fund managers, and for contrast she has thrown in Mindy Gooch, who writes a blog titled “The Joys of Not Having It All.” She is the outsider looking in, even though she resides at One Fifth.
When the “queen of society” Louise Houghton dies leaving her “legendary collection of jewelry,” including the mysteriously stolen Cross of Bloody Mary and her historical penthouse at One Fifth with a domed ballroom and a 360-degree view of Manhattan, the race to see who can acquire the coveted real estate first begins.
The idea that money seduces us and creates aspiring social-climbing whores and that “Forty million isn’t real money. A hundred million is getting there” paints a picture of our society that is alarming but possibly true. Bushnell concludes that the young are afraid to grow up to be the “establishment” --- that is, until money talks. There is power in having limitless amounts of money, but she also writes characters like Annalisa Rice who are unhappy, despite their billions and Chopard watches.
Philip Oakland grew up at One Fifth. He has won a Pulitzer Prize and an Oscar, and is writing screenplays for Hollywood, yet he is restless, out of touch and easily seduced by the much younger Lola, who is seeking to marry into money. Lola’s character is the energy in this novel. She has the “unbridled confidence of youth,” a keen sense of status and the power to use sexual temptation to elevate her social status. Each of her conquests is a writer, and her sexcapades are the only sex here. Romance is absent in ONE FIFTH AVENUE, but surprisingly the older women are ultimately winners over the younger ones. Age, wisdom and money still have clout, but sex without romance is like marriage, and Bushnell’s readers are used to fantasy and lovers who excite us.
If you are looking for another SEX AND THE CITY with rich relationships between female friends, lovers and sexy shoes, or another LIPSTICK JUNGLE, with women working and sleeping their way to the top, you will not find that in this latest Bushnell effort. The author has matured, and in many places I felt she was writing her own experiences about million-dollar book advances, two-week book tours, fleeting fame and growing older in a city that requires mega money to surpass your peers in the “playground of New York society.”
ONE FIFTH characters all share a love for New York and lead glamorous lives full of photo shoots, private dinners, ad campaigns, red carpet events, society photos, fashion and gossip. Enid Merle is a gossip columnist living at One Fifth who harbors the secrets of the bastion of the wealthy. Actress Schiffer Diamond returns to New York after a Hollywood divorce and pursues former lover Philip Oakland.
To put the characters’ silver-lined lives into perspective, one of the most memorable conversations in this book is between Schiffer Diamond and society escort Billy Litchfield: “He keeps turning up like a bad penny, doesn’t he?” “More like a million-dollar bill,” Billy said. Now this is the Bushnell we have come to know and love. One never knows when their very own “million-dollar” lover will jet them away to Fifth Avenue for life’s greatest indulgences. Don’t forget --- Champagne, Chopard and Chanel are a girl’s best friends!
--- Reviewed by Hillary Wagy
Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.
© Copyright 1996-2009, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
