Candace Bushnell, author of "Sex and the City" and "Lipstick Jungle," is no stranger to mining the details of her own life for the greater good of popular culture, but she insists her latest book, "One Fifth Avenue," (Voice/Hyperion, $25.95), is just a novel.
"A NOVEL," she emphasizes during a phone conversation from Los Angeles.
Today, Bushnell makes a stop in Atlanta at the Margaret Mitchell House to read from this novel, her fifth, a tale of New York City climbers who live or wish they lived in a building called One Fifth Avenue.
The building is a real Art Deco landmark which Bushnell fills with fictional inhabitants including Mindy Gooch, a frustrated magazine editor; Philip Oakland, a novelist who sold out to Hollywood; and Enid Merle, an aging gossip columnist from Texas.
"It's a great, fun, romping novel with a little art, the mortgage crisis," Bushnell said. "It's about how the new replaces the old and how life continues."
In this case, new residents replace old ones, young Internet journalists challenge writers from the old guard, and old money gives way to parvenu.
The busy author also recently signed on to write two teen novels featuring a young Carrie Bradshaw, the main character from "Sex and the City." Bushnell describes herself as an "inquisitive, independent" teen. She hasn't started writing the series yet, but says she imagines that a young Carrie will be an independent thinker as well.
But maybe not too much like Bushnell.
It is, after all, a novel.
Q. With the success of "Sex and the City" and then "Lipstick Jungle" hailed as "SATC's" successor, do you feel as if you are competing against yourself?
A. I never feel like I'm competing against myself. It is all part of my work. For me, I just try to make each book and each series that I am working on the best that it can be.
Q. Do you ever feel confined to a certain type of writing?
A. New York is my muse and I write about contemporary women. It is what I love and it is what I'm interested in. I find women endlessly fascinating and there are all different kinds of women. Some of my characters are single, some are married, some are looking for love, some are looking for success. Some are trying to find out why they are here. So I find it endlessly fascinating.
Q. What do you make of the commentary about you on Gawker.com? [Gawker has lobbed more than a few barbs at Bushnell and speculates the site served as inspiration for the snarky online journalism featured in her book.]
A. I think it is all part of an inside joke. One of the elements in the book is the Internet and it acts as a Greek chorus. Some of the characters in One Fifth Avenue are bloggers. Thayer Core is in his early 20s and works for a Web site called Snarker. Then Mindy Gooch starts a blog which becomes enormously popular. One of the elements of the book is about a clash of the generations. I think it's human nature for people in their 20s to kind of want to take down the establishment and actually, they should, because they are the ones who are taking over.
Q. So many of your characters are seeking some form of the good life, be it fame, money or property. Is that a reflection of American society or just New York?
A. Don't most people want to raise their standing in one way or another? That is human nature. I write about human nature and I write about people in a way that is real. Readers absolutely will identify with these books. Certainly, though "One Fifth Avenue" obviously takes place in New York, real estate runs very deep in all of us. Our basic requirements are food and shelter. I think people have been squabbling over real estate since they lived in caves.
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