Judging a Book By Its Cover

Tuesday night I saw two of my favorite authors, Jennifer Weiner and Candace Bushnell, catching up like old friends onstage. Weiner is a bestselling “chick-lit” novelist. (I'm in queue position 5,678 at my local library for a copy of Weiner's latest, Best Friends Forever).  Bushnell’s 1996 novel Sex and the City became the basis of a bonafide cultural phenomenon. Touted as a conversation on the creative process, self-esteem, “and of course, shoes,” I couldn’t wait to see the two seeming polar opposites connect.

I arrived in the city about an hour before showtime. Climbing out of the subway, I spotted Sebastian, the high school lothario from Bravo’s NYC Prep. He was loitering on the corner of Lexington and 86^th with a nymph-like blonde. I watched him grab her ass, squeezing as if he was testing a ripe melon. She giggled appreciatively. I marveled at how puny he was in real life. He caught me staring and gave me his trademark dead fish look. I averted my eyes and tried not to laugh. So much for getting an autograph.

The crowd at the 92^nd Street Y, of course, was predominantly young women. Settling into the fourth row, I noticed two empty seats in the second one, directly across from the stage. Did I dare? There were no seating assignments. I took a deep breath. Once in elementary school a group of kids literally pushed me to the ground to reach the ice cream truck faster. For much of my life I’ve held back. It was time to move forward. “Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?” I asked the portly man in the second row aisle seat. “Nope,” he grunted, getting up and letting me slide past.

And that’s how I ended up sitting two seats down from the Antichrist--cleverly disguised as a grandmother.

The evening began innocently enough. Jennifer is as effervescent and witty as her novels, intelligent without being pretentious. Candace is fifty but looks thirty-five. As the discussion turned from child rearing to the pitfalls of Brazilian waxing, the deceptively cute grandma began rumbling like an impending earthquake. “Vaat is the purpose of this?” she muttered, vicious as a wet cat. “I thought this was Sex and the City!” In addition to looking like Dr. Ruth Westheimer, she had the sex doctor’s thick accent down pat. It was official. I was sitting next to Dr. Ruth’s Evil Twin. Four different women shushed her. I wondered if the staff was going to kick her out.

The Twin raised a tiny gnarled fist. “Hellooo!” she shouted, waving her bejeweled hand. “I thought this was SEX. AND. THE. CITY!” There was a precious moment of stunned silence. Candace began stammering about how there would be Sex and the City “a little later.” Jennifer pointed out the title of the discussion was actually about friendship and writing. The Twin left in a copiously perfumed huff. The room exploded into applause.  

Moments later, listening to Jennifer reflect on the value of “women supporting women,” I thought how deceiving images could be. A sweet grandmother looking type, for example, could turn out to be Satan. Hailed as a patron saint of the sexually empowered woman, Candace was slightly reserved and almost shy in person. One of my favorite moments was when Candace discussed her fascination with the different ways people use the cards they’re dealt. Sometimes we spend so much time wishing we had someone else’s Ace of Spades we miss our own Ace of Hearts. Candace also has a wicked sense of humor. One of the book ideas her publisher rejected involved a status-chasing couple losing their child to sudden death because of their frivolous ways.

Jennifer was gregarious throughout, joking on the struggles of becoming a writer (“Writing was the only thing I was good at.”). When she tells her mother Simon & Schuster is picking up her first novel, her mother asks what the title is.

“Um…Good in Bed,” Jennifer admits.

“Good and Bad?” her mother repeats.

The auditorium erupted in laughter.

I didn’t ask any questions during the Q&A period. I prefer to sit back and observe. I listened to a woman reveal how Jennifer and Candace’s books helped her through a difficult period in her life. Another woman seemed in awe of Candace and couldn’t understand why someone so attractive wasn’t more active in the Sex and the City television series and films. Though Candace was very involved in the television incarnation of her novel Lipstick Jungle, I get the sense she is as much an observer as the rest of us. She simply enjoys being a writer, not the founder of a cultural movement. Plus, she swears she can’t act.

I enjoyed the easy camaraderie of the evening (including The Twin, purely for entertainment purposes). I like to think of writers as observers, societal anthropologists if you want to get hoity-toity about it. ;) After all, we’re more comfortingly alike then we think. Underneath the images we create, we’re all just making the best of the cards we’re dealt. Want to be a published writer? Write about what you know. Write about what we all know. Write about us, the joys, the struggles, the heartbreaks, the redemption. Write, work hard, never give up and before long you may score the perfect hand.