One Fifth Avenue is a literary fiction book by author Candace Bushnell.
One Fifth Avenue is a modern-day tale of old and new money, the very combustible blend that Edith Wharton has mastered in her novels of New York’s Gilded Age and that F. Scott Fitzgerald has illuminated. shining in his Jazz Age stories.
Fifth Avenue, the Art Deco building that towers over one of Manhattan’s trendiest and oldest neighborhoods, is a one-of-a-kind address, the kind of building you have to find your way into – by this way or another. For the women of Candace Bushnell’s new novel, One Fifth Avenue, this building is essential to the lives they have carefully established – or hoped to establish. From the hedge fund owner’s wife to the elderly gossip columnist, to the free-spirited actress (a new refugee from L.A.), the action plan to lead a rich life each came together under the soaring roof of this famous building.
Decades later, Bushnell New Yorkers suffer from the same passions as fictional Manhattaners from earlier eras: They crave power, social prominence, and successful marriages – At least in the public eye. But Bushnell is original, and One Fifth Avenue is so refreshing that it reads as if sexual politics, real estate theft, and lost property in a single day have never happened before.
This is my second Candace Bushnell novel, my first is Lipstick Jungle. I chose not to read Sex and the City first because it seemed like I would be disappointed if the book was different from the show. I’m someone who always thinks the book is better, but I read something about the Sex and the City book that scared me when I read it and had to accept that my favorite characters aren’t who they are. I hope they will.
So after reading Lipstick Jungle, I fell in love with her writing style and the story. It was obviously staged to play out as if it could be a TV show (which it became) but I found it interesting and something I could read for a long time. I bought Lipstick Jungle with One Fifth and I read the prologue and found it confusing so tried to skip the book for a few months until I needed a long book to read for homework so I took it out off the shelf and take it out to read. Good….
