By Navya D.
The internationally bestselling author, Candace Bushnell moved to a city of dreams, New York from Glastonbury when she was 19. She began her journey as an author in her teens and published a children’s genre book called ‘Simon & Schuster.’ Candace Bushnell established her trademark in romantic humorous fiction and that’s what earned her the most coveted position as an author.
Sex and the City, the critically acclaimed fictional novel of Candace Bushnell, has its roots in a 1990’s column written by Candace in Hamptons Magazine. Her column in New York observer, Sex and the City, ran for over 2 years until it was finally launched as a novel in 1995 followed by the HBO series in 1996.
Besides being a proud author of ten books, Candace Bushnell is a Television producer, journalist, and recipient of the 2006 Matrix award for books and the Albert Einstein Spirit of Achievement Award.
As Candace mastered the art of satirical commenting, The Guardian has rightly defined her as “Sharper, darker, braver, and cleverer.” Bushnell is indeed clever and brave to surface the equality fallacy that the world leaders advocate. Since Bushnell attests so much significance to feminism, most of her works surround chick-lit tales like “Sex and the City,” “Lipstick Jungle,” “Four Blondes,” and “Rules for being a girl.”
While her bestselling novel, “Sex and the City,” talks about ‘Carrie,’ a young writer searching for love in all wrong places, its prequel, “The Carrie Diaries,” offers a glimpse into Carrie’s drama-filled life before moving to Manhattan. Candace’s novels revolve around tales of women, who are either thoughtful and fight feminine struggles life throws their way or strong and enduring hard luck with ‘rich’ and ‘big’ men.
She likes to explore and expose the troubled waters women often sail to access even the easiest things that men get without effort. Although her lead characters are miserable, they are still funny and embrace their lives. Especially in ‘Sex and the city,’ Carrie had been vulnerable without peer support and with backstabbing from her supporters to add to her utter misery.
Candace’s novels are not protagonist-centric alone. The tales lay equal emphasis on all the characters and their multidimensional personalities. For example, consider how Carrie has been portrayed in ‘Sex and the city.’ Not only did her multiple traits stood out, Candace has chosen to educate the readers on how they took shape by giving equal significance to her upbringing, childhood, and her humble beginnings. That’s the depth Candace takes the readers into.
Most of her stories are also themed around the sedentary sexual experiences of elderly women and contrasts how younger women are coveted by middle-aged men as compared to finding an age-appropriate partner. Candace chronicles the diverse and distinguished yet unique and common experiences of women from all walks of life. Although ‘Sex’ is something common you find in her books, that’s not all to her feminine tales.
As a woman who believes feminism is a wrestle for equality, nothing more and nothing less, Candace is building a castle of feminine pains. Yes, Candace’s novels are fictional tropes. Still, they capture a significant amount of reality of the real-worldly incidences to not miss the essence of deep-rooted misogyny and normalized notions that are lenient towards men as compared to women. If you feel otherwise, it’s time to buy some Candace.