Lipstick Jungle



Lunch break reading

 Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell

Category: I listened to this on CD about five years ago.

My thoughts: So I was in the mood for something light after reading Paradise. And Lipstick Jungle is definitely a fun read. But it isn’t full of empty calories, if you will. I found myself really clinging to what the book says about powerful women. Let me build…

Lipstick Jungle is the story of three high-powered, forty-something women living in New York City, Wendy Healy (a movie executive), Victory Ford (a fashion designer), and Nice O’Neilly (an Anna-Wintour-like magazine editor). The novel follows the women’s work successes (and some failures) and their romantic misadventures. Lipstick Jungle was also, very briefly, a TV series (which I tried to like, but failed). Reading this book, I couldn’t help thinking about our old friend Undine Spragg from The Custom of the Country. She would fit right in in this world of cutthroat business in New York.

In Lipstick Jungle, Candace Bushnell features thought-provoking portrayals about women and gender roles in the personal and professional worlds. Interestingly (well, to me), the book was published in 2005, the year I joined the work force, and what resonated with me is her insight on women in the workplace. If you’re too nice, people attempt to take advantage of that (Dear readers, if you’ve ever seen The September Issue, about the making of the titular issue for Vogue magazine, you’ll remember Grace Coddington saying to Edward Enninful, “Don’t be too nice, even to me. Or you’ll lose.”). But if you show that you can’t be messed with, you’re called a bitch. One of the characters previously learned that, in business, talent can take you only so far, and that “perception and positioning” are key as well. The older I get and the more I work, I see that this is true. Nico, Wendy, and Victory certainly had a lot of talent, but they also had grit, drive, and the ability to strike while the iron is hot.

As I said before, their lives are not all work and no play. There are some, to be frank, pretty hot scenes in the book concerning the women’s love lives. I have a feeling that Lipstick Jungle is one of those books I’ll return to several times.

Great passage: What most women thought were “the rules” were simply precepts to keep women in their place. “Nice” was a comfortable, reassuring box where society told women if they stayed—if they didn’t stray out of the nice-box—they would be safe. But no one was safe. Safety was a lie, especially when it came to business.

P.S. If you haven’t seen The September Issue, do watch it very soon! And next, I'll be reading Maud Martha.