Four Blondes

by Candace Bushnell

Atlantic Monthly Press, 245 pp., $24

What is truly shocking about Bushnell’s tale of four of the unnaturally fair headed breed is not the fact that some women use their looks to get what they want, snort coke, pop Xanax, and live shallow, pointless lives, but that Bushnell isn’t a particularly funny or witty writer. But the most surprising aspect of Four Blondes is its stark difference from Sex and the City, the HBO series based upon her first book. Sex and the City professes some glee in the single, glamorous New York life. This book suggests there’s a kind of triumph in becoming dependent upon men, as if the hoops that women jump through during the le ronde of dating rituals are most meaningful when they result in a platinum loop with a flawless Tiffany diamond on top. Surely Bushnell doesn’t intend her view of the world to be that trite, reactionary, or (dare I say it?) dull.

This article appears in October 13 • 2000.

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