One Fifth Avenue

July 28, 2008
Sex in the City
goes middle-aged, mordant and slapstick in Bushnell's chronicle of writers, actors and Wall Street whizzes clashing at One Fifth Avenue, a Greenwich Village art deco jewel crammed with regal rich, tarty upstarts and misguided lovers. When a “Queen of Society” dies, a vicious scramble for her penthouse apartment ensues, and it's attorney Annalisa and her hedge-funder husband, Paul Rice, who land the palatial pad, roiling the building's rivalries. There's Billy Litchfield, an art dealer who slobbers over the wealthy; strivers Mindy and James Gooch, and their tech-savvy 13-year-old Sam, the most hilariously bitter (and strangely successful) family in the building; gossip columnist Enid Merle and her screenwriter nephew, Philip Oakland, who struggle to uphold traditions and their souls; actress Schiffer Diamond, who lands a hit TV series, and her old love; and Lola Fabrikant, a cunning Atlanta gold digger whose greatest ambition is to become Carrie Bradshaw. Here are bloggers and bullies, misfits and misanthropes, dear hearts and black-hearts, dogfights and catty squalls spun into a darkly humorous chick-lit saga.

This is SEX AND THE CITY--for seniors. One Fifth Avenue is the ultimate NYC address, so when its 7,000-square-foot penthouse becomes vacant--through the bizarre death of its nearly 100-year-old owner--the tenants, present, future, and past, clamor for the space. However, even a narrator as skilled as Donna Murphy can't keep all the voices straight. But shifting from pathos to bitchiness to mirth, Murphy tries to capture them all. Best moment--the vulgar, drunken wake. Best character--Lola Fabricant, an Atlanta gold digger who strives to be Carrie Bradshaw of SEX AND THE CITY. This is worth a listen while doing meaningless chores but not something that will linger long in the mind. M.T.B. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine