It s four in the morning and Candace Bushnell is sitting, deep in conversation, on a sofa in the library of Lillie s Bordello night-club, in Dublin. Out of the maze of post-rugby match revellers steps one particular gentleman who aims his gaze at the slit in the characteristically short, blue skirt Candace is wearing. And aims his words in much the same direction.
I saw you on Kenny Live. I m what you would call a toxic bachelor and I hate you. I hate what you say about men in your book, he says. Joe Sutton, who earlier had been looking longingly at Candace s blue skirt but on a purely professional level in his capacity as Mr. Candy promptly tells the guy to fuck off. Candace interjects. No problem, she whispers. I know how to deal with this kind of guy. However, just before this interloper is dismissed with a Shakespearean away slight man wave of the hand from Candace, he smiles and says, I m only joking. I just wanted to come over and talk to you. She dismisses him, anyway. Gently.
Candace Bushnell has probably been at the receiving end of this kind of crap at least a thousand times before. The column she writes for the New York Observer is rather tantalisingly called Sex And The City, which also is the title of the collection that now unleashes onto the world such concepts as toxic bachelors and modelisers. The column, book and maybe-soon-to-be-TV-series, has also led to Bushnell s reputation as the most talked about woman in New York , a journalist who dares to expose the mating habits of Manhattan s so-called elite. TheEvening Standard recently said of her, Bushnell s beat is the demi-monde of nightclubs, bars, restaurants and parties where the rich come into contact with the infamous, the famous with the wannabes and the publicity-hungry with the gossip peddlers.
As a woman who is known as the Sharon Stone of journalism , Candace is used to encountering much worse than that relatively mediocre come-on from a guy in Lillie s. Such as listening to dickheads endlessly bleat: so, you wear no knickers? Actually she does. Or rather, she occasionally wears a delicious G-string. (Though, obviously, the G-string wasn t seen as delicious enough by her publishers who, in the nude portrait that accompanies her book, air-brushed out the offensive strip of material.)
This, of course, is the kind of subject that can only be discussed after midnight, when the alcohol level is as high as the lights are low. Our conversation had actually begun nine hours earlier in the more sedate surroundings of the Princess Grace suite in Dublin s Shelbourne-Meridian Hotel. At the time Candace was more than a little frazzled , having been given grief by Customs officials in Heathrow , and also because she needed to sew a button on that blue suit she was planning to wear for the Kenny show.
I can t thread this damn needle! Candace exclaims, tossing the needle and thread on the table and reaching instead for her cigarettes. But, to hell with all this talk of domestic trivia, right? We have the bubbly , the suite in the high-class hotel, the man, the woman, so shouldn t we now haul out the coke? Certainly, one prevalent image of the people who populate Candace s book is that many are privileged prats who endlessly powder their noses, ride, give/take blow-jobs and don t really give a damn about anything else.
The characters in my book do probably fall into that category, in terms of the social scene in New York! she says, laughing. But what I really try to do is take a funny, irreverent look at the foibles of the rich and famous, the underside of glamour, rather than maliciously attack anyone. It s like when you are a kid and you read about glamorous people in New York, riding in limos, going to clubs, whatever. This book is about what it is like to live that life and how it can be very difficult to find meaningful relationships in that context.
But does that really matter to these people? When it comes to the question of relationships, Candace herself has said that although there s still plenty of sex in Manhattan, it s the kind of sex that results in friendships and business deals, not romance. No one really has lovers, even if they ve slept together. If this is true, is she gratified by that kind of lifestyle?
Many people I know are not gratified by it, at all. Women or men. And many of those people in Manhattan do, apparently, turn to my column to try get a handle on all this. But me? Yeah, I m gratified because I m a writer. And, as I say, I have people who read my stuff all the time. So I honestly am very happy when I m in my office typing away.
Candace freely admits that the sex in Sex And The City is more selling point than substance.
Sure, she responds. Because there s not a lot of sex in it. The sex is really in passing. Because a lot of the people in the book are in their 20 s, I focus on the kind of relationships those people have. Like modelisers , guys who only go out with models. At the end of that chapter there s this guy of 28 who says, look at me, I m an old man at 28 . Because he has given up his life to pursuing models and this empty, meaningless lifestyle. And, now, he hates all these models, who seem to him to be 16 years old. So the book is more about lives, at that level.
And what does Candace herself think of modelisers a style of creep not uncommon around Dublin night-spots such as the POD, it must be said.
They are pitiful, she says emphatically. And I m sure they re just as pathetic here in Dublin as they are in New York because these guys are in every major city. Yet let s not forget that New York is the fashion capital of the world, so most of the models go there. And they are followed by young men, middle-aged, old men who desperately need to be seen with and seduce these young women.
But at what point do women become equally pitiful, manipulative bitches in Candace s book?
I didn t put the women into categories in the same way, but I probably should have, she says, having pondered the question. But then when this whole thing started out it really was more journalistic, getting seven guys in a room to talk about threesomes and how they all basically messed up, in terms of getting two women in bed. Men in New York are always saying hey, why don t we have a threesome? and it s incredibly annoying to women. Like, if someone says I d love to have a threesome with you and your friend , who really wants to hear that? Yet what you find out in that chapter is that most men have actually been with another guy and a woman. Even though the two guys didn t actually have sex with each other. Yet they both had sex with that woman, which is kind of ugly, though it s obviously some people s fantasy. Not mine.
Three questions arise out of this. One: is it true that Candace juiced those seven guys up with rum and marijuana in order to get them to talk about threesomes. Two: is this an acceptable form of journalism? And three: was Candace herself ever part of a threesome?
Yes, I did ply them with rum and marijuana and, is it acceptable journalism? That s for other people to decide. I got the story, right? And was I ever involved in a threesome? No, she says, drawing on her cigarette and shaking her head in such a way as to suggest that she finds the latter notion offensive.
Well, this whole question came out of that, she explains. Guys are always saying to me, hey, how about you, me and your girlfriend? But it s not my thing. I m just not into having sex with women.
Does Candace accept that many young women these days are into same-sex experiences?
Well, that s really happening in New York, especially among models. All these girls in their 20s are bisexual. It s almost like a trendy thing to be. And a lot of guys in the fashion industry are bisexual, too. Though, I must say again that my book isn t really about sex. I m more of a comedy writer and sex is a perfect device to be funny, don t you think? People say oh, she s just a sex columnist but I m not. I m a writer of humour and, let s face it, humour really is important in relation to sex.
What is Candace saying here, that she likes her lovers to be funny?
I like them to laugh at my jokes! To find me amusing, even if they want to sit there and not be amusing themselves!
So, obviously, Candace agrees with those who say that lovers must be able to laugh at sexual failures, rather than get bogged down in the metaphysical questions surrounding it all.
I do, but the truth is that I do tend to get bogged down in the metaphysical questions, Candace responds, indicating that she herself may be part role model for the similarly-inclined Carrie character in her book, who has a love affair with Mr. Big . The latter, it s said, is Ron Galotti, publisher of Vogue. True?
Oh I don t want to limit things by answering that question! she says, a little defensively. Anyway, I ve got a new boyfriend now, for the past three months. That other guy ditched me for a ski Instructor. Actually, she was on the US ski team but I call her a ski Instructor . So, all these people are going up to him and saying, you re engaged to a ski Instructor and he hates that! But I wasn t really that upset being ditched by him. That was bound to happen, though we were together for a year and a half. I probably only felt real pain, in a relationship, when I was in my 20s. But after it happens a few times you tend not to take it so personally, you get over it.
Does she ever fall in love?
I always fall in love.
Really?
Who knows? Do any writers really fall in love?
Probably not. Maybe they just fall into something resembling love, which they then can later use to feed their muse.
Exactly. I hate to admit that, but it s true.
Has Candace ever gender-reversed the modeliser tendency and wrapped herself around a cute have-him-washed-and-brought-to-my-tent 18-year-old boy.
I did have a little thing with a model, she says, conspiratorially. But one of the things about this person was, as someone said, he s so good-looking you can t help but fall a little in love with him. Everybody does. Yet there is something incredibly evil about his looks. On the surface he seems nice but he s actually very self-absorbed. And when you get involved with somebody like that they just suck out all your energy and give nothing back. It s like getting pulled into this vortex of their constant need to be reinforced in relation to their looks.
So when she asked herself why this model was with her, how did Candace Bushnell answer that question?
He probably had his manipulative reasons, like for publicity. I was a journalist and he might have believed I d write a story on him.
And if Candace led him to believe this was true wasn t she being just as manipulative?
Well, I am manipulative, but not terribly manipulative, she says, smiling. But that really is what relationships are all about in New York, which is what I try to highlight in the book. People get involved because they re doing business and hussling. That s how you get power-couples.
As in Candace Bushnell and Ron Galotti?
Well, we went to some lovely black-tie parties, which was great for getting descriptions for my columns. And it is thrilling to have access to those events, and people. I write about this world and want to know it as much as I can. That s because I come from a base of being a writer, more than anything else. I ve been writing since I was a kid. It s all I ever wanted to do. And I did profiles before this, for the Observer. That s what led to the column. And when I look back on those profiles I have to say they were well-written, great quotes. So I prefer to get right into the centre of it all, whether that is a black-tie affair, or an interview. And I like what I write to be funny. That s really important to me. Even when people write nasty things about me, I don t care, as long as it s funny.
So, what is the nastiest thing anyone ever wrote about Candace? Perhaps, that she s not as perfect as she likes to present herself in public?
But I am perfect! she jokes. No. I m really a nasty piece of work, probably even an alcoholic!
Is she?
I probably drink too much.
Surely Candace Bushnell is part of the cocaine scene in New York?
All I m going to say is that if you want cocaine it is readily available (Tellingly, perhaps, the otherwise endlessly articulate Candace Bushnell falters at this point). I m just going to well, actually people say they don t do it anymore, but they do use cocaine. Yet they do it in a small way so they still get up and go to work the next day. In other words, it doesn t become the centre of their lives. And I did a story on all this for the Observer.
Can Candace write on cocaine?
I don t know. I never have! But everyone, in all different kinds of professions are taking drugs. So, yes, people in my book do take drugs but it s almost the same way they have sex, as in something passing. That s what s interesting to me rather than when drugs, or, for that matter, sex, become your whole life. The people in my book are trying to get ahead, they re ambitious, can t really afford to let anything other than that urge be the centre of their lives. And that, as I say, is often their problem.
It has been claimed that Candace herself also has given up on love, on hopes of ever being part of the perfect union.
No. I still believe in that. It s just that I don t see it happen very often, she responds. Yet one thing I do like about being raised as a Catholic is that it gives you faith in something out there , even though there s no proof for it! But most people seem not to be psychologically, or emotionally, advanced enough to ever become part of any perfect union . Then again I probably also believe in that because my parents have been married for 38 years and I see what a good marriage looks like.
The last relatively serious relationship Candace had was with Ron Galotti. What is her response to the rumour-mongers who suggest that she got her gig writing a column in Vogue by hustling, if not hauling, its publisher home to bed?
I was doing my column for a year, in Vogue, before I even met him! she retorts. And that relationship did create an uproar because it was not done to have a relationship with someone in such a position in the magazine. They really were pissed off about that. But the funny thing about all this is that I lied about my age to get that job! The person interviewing me said, you re exactly the demographic of our readers, urban, 31, a woman whereas I was 35! And I kept that pretence going until a so-called friend rang every gossip columnist in New York and said, she lied about her age. Most of them said, so, we lie about our ages, big deal. But then this guy, Roger, scummed around and got my driver s licence, and my manager as a joke offered to trade him the penis sizes of celebrities not to print the licence! But the guy printed that too! So, in the end, I had to come clean on my age and, hey, I m 38, so what?
But doesn t this make Candace nearly double the age of most of the people in the bars, and clubs she frequents. Does that fact bother her?
No. I get away with it, because of who I am, I guess. And most of these people think I am around 20 because those bars and clubs are dark. Sometimes, 21-year-olds even try to pick me up and I say I m a lot older than you and they say so, are you, what, 28? God bless them! If they only knew!
Cut back to Lillie s. Candace is returning to the theme of ideal love.
Too many women, in particular, think they can get all they need from one person, but I don t believe that, she says. And too many people I know have been damaged by seeking something unattainable, thinking that another person can become the centre of their world. That s stupid. My world is writing my column, socialising, meeting my girlfriends, my family, and being with my boyfriend. I m very pragmatic in that sense. But what we re told whether it is from the beginning, in terms of religion, or through songs, literature and films is to believe that one person can deliver everything to us. That s nonsense, society s way of keeping us under control.
Sipping her vodka, Candace, clearly, is on a roll.
This is what drives me crazy about all these ideas about love and romance . It s ridiculous. Why seek one person? Nobody else solves all your problems. Get off your fuckin ass and work. Work solves most of your problems if you work at something you really want to do and do it well. That s where your self esteem issues are taken care of, and your monetary issues. You can t even have a relationship with somebody if they have to pay for you or if they have to support you.
My belief is that you have to be complete onto yourself before you can really connect with anyone else. And the point is that in New York I do connect with so many people, at different levels. It doesn t have to be sexual. In fact, I have a boyfriend I have sex with, so that s fine. In other words, if I connect with a guy I m not automatically thinking about sex. And talking to all those young girls, who came over to me for advice on relationships after the Pat Kenny Valentine Special I really was reminded of the one great mistake women make. They go out with the guy they want to be, instead of becoming what they want to be. That s what screws up all relationships. What I say is don t go out with it, don t marry it, be it yourself. Like, in my case, I really want a Ferrari, right? At first, I always wanted a boyfriend who had a Ferrari and then Ron had a Ferrari and drove it really well. But, suddenly I realised, I want to drive my own Ferrari. And I will have one!
So what is Candace s response to the suggestion that she lives a charmed life , never had to pay any artistic dues and that her writing is devoid of any sociological or literary worth whatsoever?
They do say that! she laughs. And though this may sound like self-glorification, it s not the truth is that less than five years ago I, literally, held a loaded gun to my head and wanted to kill myself. But then I realised that my parents would be so disappointed if I did that. And it wasn t the first time. I ve always thought about suicide. But, at 33, part of it was that I felt I d failed in everything, work, relationships. No one was paying me for what I was writing, I had no money whatsoever. But then you wake up and say fuck it, I m going to keep doing it, they re going to have to kill me to make me stop writing, working. That s the moment of release, because you realise that you don t care whether you re a success or not, you re going to go for it anyway.
But to go back to your question about my work not having any literary merit . The truth is that in New York we have so many pseudo-writers and pseudo-intellectuals. That s why it makes me so fucking mad when they say my work is inferior to real literature . Because what these people consider literary is so often fucking pretentious, simply satisfying the co-ordinates, delivering what the New York Times deems to be literature. It s definitely not defined by how we live today. Yet what these people really can t accept is that journalism is the new literature. The novel used to be the place where writers pursued truth but now it s up to journalists to do that. And some critics will never accept that fact.
My journalism certainly sets out in search of truth. I wouldn t do it if it didn t. I really do live to capture those moments of revelation when all the walls come tumbling down, when you see through the charade, shift away the pretence and show that everybody is fucking human and susceptible to human foibles such as vanity, greed and insecurity. I really do hope my work highlights that difference, between the truth and the pomp and circumstance, the posing. That s why I say Sex And The City is about the underside of glamour. For a lot of people this is an ideal life, going to glamorous parties, meeting glamorous people. But scratch the surface and everybody s fucking miserable and full of false feelings and false values.
So what then in essence is Candace Bushnell saying to readers of her book? Don t aspire to this lifestyle, whether it is in New York or Dublin?
Exactly that, she says. Don t, don t, don t aspire to it. And if you do aspire to it and you are not prepared, these people will fucking rip you to shreds in two seconds because they are experts at destroying people that can t walk-the-walk and talk-the-talk. You pay a price for it. And, in some ways, that price is dehumanisation.
Has Candace paid this price?
I ve paid other prices. Like one of the prices may be that I won t ever have kids. I might be too old. But I accept that. I m willing to pay that price. It s a conscious decision. And I ll never be one of those women who says, oh, I m 40 and I can t get pregnant so I m going to take fertility pills . That s undignified. I ve made my decision. Maybe that decision won t turn out to be final but if it does, I accept that.
What if her new boyfriend, who is 35, wants to have children?
And says to me you re too old so I m going to have kids with somebody else ? Well, I ll have to eat that, accept it. But look at it this way. For most people the best thing they can do is have kids. It s like their greatest chance for redemption and honour is to really raise those kids up right and to focus on the kids and love them. That s the best thing they will ever do in their lives. But for people like you or people like me, that may not be our personal mission. So we have to give that up. It s not that one is more valid than the other, just that it s different. I used to always say that anybody can have kids but not everybody can get a book published! But when you have a book published you realise you were wrong, because there are three billion books out there! So I would love to have kids. I love kids. n