One Fifth Avenue, the Art Deco beauty towering over one of Manhattan's oldest and most historically hip neighborhoods, is a one-of-a-kind address, the sort of building you have to earn your way into - one way or another. For the women in Candace Bushnell's new novel, One Fifth Avenue, this edifice is essential to the lives they've carefully established - or hope to establish. From the hedge fund king's wife to the aging gossip columnist to the free-spirited actress (a recent refugee from L.A.), each person's game plan for a rich life comes together under the soaring roof of this landmark building. This book is a modern-day story of old and new money, that same combustible mix that Edith Wharton mastered in her novels about New York's Gilded Age and F. Scott Fitzgerald illuminated in his Jazz Age tales. Many decades later, Bushnell's New Yorkers suffer the same passions as those fictional Manhattanites from eras past: They thirst for power, for social prominence, and for marriages that are successful - at least to the public eye. But Bushnell is an original, and One Fifth Avenue is so fresh that it reads as if sexual politics, real estate theft, and fortunes lost in a day have never happened before.
I have not read Bushnell's Sex and the City, but have enjoyed reading some of her ther books about the lives of New Yorkers.
ReplyDeleteThis book was a little hard to get into at first, but Bushnell quickly develps the characters and tells a tale about the ups and downs of up-scale New York life. I was a little disappointed in the fact that the story was overall a bit depressing. The good qualities in the characters were hard to find, which may have been her purpose all along. The appropriate characters triumphed in the end, which I was glad for. Overall, I thought it was okay, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.
So question....I may be a little too excited about this...but we have the book of the month that we read and then comment on the 28th right? So like in the meantime do we read other books and make comments or recommend it if we want too? Just curious and excited!!
ReplyDeleteYes! The Book Club Book we hold off on comments until the end of the month so that everyone has a chance to get/read the book. In the meantime we will be posting selections that we read throughout the month...so if you have a book you would like to discuss/recommend (same goes for BCB titles), send us an email to mysistersandme3@gmail.com and we will get the title up for you! I'm glad you are as excited as we are! :)
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