The price of power; the pull of friendship
Lipstick Jungle
By Candace Bushnell
Hyperion, 353 pp., $24.95
The Myth of You and Me
By Leah Stewart
Shaye Areheart, 288 pp., $21.95
26a
By Diana Evans
Morrow, 288 pp., $23.95
Some novels are built for speed-reading; others should be savored, even reread. Candace Bushnell's latest, ''Lipstick Jungle," is a classic page-turner. Leah Stewart's ''The Myth of You and Me" deserves a more thoughtful reading. Diana Evans's ''26a" deserves to be read, and reread, by a large audience.
Nico, Wendy, and Victory, the glamorous main characters in Bushnell's sex 'n' success saga ''Lipstick Jungle," are 40-something dynamos who rate places on the list of ''New York's 50 Most Powerful Women." This trio of friends may be older than the inseparable foursome of ''Sex and the City," but in some ways they're no wiser. There's plenty of relationship-related angst in this jungle, much soul-searching about the price of ''having it all," and, it goes without saying, lots of sex, enthusiastically described. But the main story revolves around another kind of passion -- a lust for power, a craving to make it to the top and stay there.
It's Fashion Week in Manhattan, and celebrated designer Victory Ford's new collection, a departure from everything she's done before, is a critical disaster. Her company may be facing bankruptcy. Enter crass billionaire Lyne Bennett. Does he have designs on Victory, or on her clothing company?
Wendy Healy, president of Parador Pictures, is trying to complete what she hopes will be an Oscar-nominated film. At home, things are breaking down. Her chronically unemployed trophy husband, Shane, resents her success almost as much as he enjoys the status and perks that go with it. Their three children are bratty and demanding. Now Shane, who has been making eyes at the gorgeous star of
Nico O'Neilly, editor in chief of Bonfire magazine, ''the most powerful woman in publishing," is in the fight of her life to ascend to the very top of the Splatch-Verner media empire. But a chance encounter with male underwear model Kirby Atwood leaves her uncharacteristically aquiver. Months before, they shared a quickie in a restaurant bathroom stall, ''some of the best moments of her life," she reflects.
It's fairly hot stuff, although fans of the HBO series based on Bushnell's ''Sex and the City" may be disappointed. ''Lipstick Jungle" has its funny moments, but it lacks the outrageously campy, cartoon-like quality of the TV production. It's trashy good fun, and easy to read. Bushnell has her heroines grapple with all the problems faced by ambitious working women, but she never lets a serious issue slow her down.
Stewart's second novel, ''The Myth of You and Me," is an intricately constructed, heartfelt story about the death of an intense friendship. Cameron, the narrator, and Sonia were inseparable best friends from the day they met, at age 15, until after college, when Cameron, wounded by Sonia's betrayal, ended the relationship. Years later 29-year-old Cameron is living in Oxford, Miss., working as secretary and companion to 92-year-old historian Oliver Doucet. A letter arrives one day, from Cambridge. It's from Sonia, who wonders if their friendship was real or a myth, ''the myth of you and me." She asks Cameron to be the maid of honor in her wedding.
Cameron ignores the letter, against Oliver's advice. Then Oliver dies, leaving Cameron a package and a note. It's a wedding present for Sonia, which Cameron is instructed to deliver in person. Cameron's search for her former friend leads her to Cambridge, Gloucester, New York, and finally to Clovis, N.M., and the neighborhood where she lived when she and Sonia first met. Along the way she encounters people from her past, including one of Sonia's former boyfriends, Will Barrett, whom Cameron quietly loved. The story is one of secrets, broken promises, and surprises, right up to the predictably happy ending.
Evans's ''26a" is amazing, all the more so for being a first novel. It's the story of the Hunter family, particularly twins Georgia and Bessi, as they move from childhood to adulthood. Evans deftly balances comedy and tragedy, unfolding her story in vivid patchwork pieces that come together to form a bittersweet family portrait, splashed with brilliant images.
The novel is set in Neasden, a lower-middle-class London suburb, and in Nigeria, where the Hunters, a mixed-race family, live for several years. The story Evans tells is funny, poignant, laced with darkness and mysticism. Even Neasden, a very ordinary place, seems magical in the pages of ''26a." The twins' childhood has a fairy-tale quality, a happy story with monsters lurking offstage. In an early chapter they watch the televised marriage of Diana Spencer and Prince Charles, hoping with innocent fervor that the wedding will make their quarreling parents remember that they used to love each other. At the end of ''26a," a family tragedy coincides with Princess Diana's death.
26a Waifer Avenue is not a happy place. Aubrey, who grew up in England, is a self-hating, timid accountant. He drinks too much, angrily roams the streets, and returns home to terrify his family. His wife, Ida, dreams of her native Nigeria and carries on imaginary conversations with her mother. She's always cold, and insists on heating up everything she eats, even ice cream. The Hunter children -- the twins, older sister Bel, and younger sister Kemy -- escape into their separate worlds. Together, Bessi and Georgia are the heart of the story. Most of us have no idea what it's like to be a twin. Evans manages to convey some small idea of what it feels like, how twins think and communicate. Her portrait of that special bond is a revelation.
Diane White writes every month about new light and popular fiction.
