But the part I\u2019ll miss the most is analysing the crap out of Carrie\u2019s novel. It was Carrie\u2019s downstairs tenant Duncan that started it. That pipe-puffing non-event jizzing over the line \u201cThe woman wondered what she had gotten herself into.\u201d What the fuck, Duncan? Are you not an acclaimed writer? Have you ever actually read a book? At the same time, I enjoyed the Brit\u2019s wild encouragement and Carrie\u2019s growing confidence. Carrie\u2019s renewed literary life felt to me like the only remaining facet of the spiky, ambitious Bradshaw we once knew. It\u2019s just a shame that she still sort-of relied on a man\u2019s approval to usher her there.<\/p>\n
Pipe-puffin\u2019 Duncan from And Just Like That.<\/p>\n
While the final season of And Just Like That was bamboozling viewers worldwide, Sarah Jessica Parker was also promoting another project: The 2025 Booker Prize. Parker is a famously avid reader with excellent taste<\/a>. She\u2019s regularly papped with a novel in her arms and has her own publishing imprint, SJP Lit<\/a>. She\u2019s such a literary nut that The Booker Prizes came calling and just like that she\u2019s influencing literary culture like Carrie influences fashion.<\/p>\n All of which leads me to wonder: what would Sarah Jessica Parker think of Carrie Bradshaw\u2019s novel?\u00a0<\/p>\n Fragments of Bradshaw\u2019s novel leaked out of every episode like a faint cry for help. A nameless voice from within the chaos. We weren\u2019t given much but what we do have is worthy of close reading \u2013 a sort-of review of the novel that never was.<\/p>\n Episode one<\/b><\/p>\n <\/b>\u201cThe woman wondered what she had gotten herself into.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n Duncan might struggle to keep it in his pipe but I can\u2019t get past those first two words. \u201cThe woman\u201d is a recurring motif throughout the season and becomes a symbol of the shell that Carrie Bradshaw, and all of the women in the AJLT world, have become: vessels for clothes and jewellery and barely-there plot lines. I craved a name and can\u2019t forgive Bradshaw\u2019s agent for not requesting one, too.<\/p>\n Episode two <\/b><\/p>\n \u201cSitting in the sunlight, the woman felt the fog of the last two nights lift. She realised her recent tossing and turning and insecurities were remnants of another time. A time when she was less sure of her path. This is a new house, she reminded herself. A new life. This wasn\u2019t her past, it was the present. May, 1864.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n Pinocchio had less wood. I\u2019ve a mad desire to chop \u201cand insecurities\u201d. But I did rather enjoy the \u201coohhhh, I see what she\u2019s doing\u201d moment when Bradshaw\u2019s voiceover said \u201cMay, 1864.\u201d Bradshaw\u2019s capacious, post-Big house is mighty inspirational after all. Acres of empty space just ready to fill with a terrible ex-boyfriend and his baggage. That\u2019s one blessed thing about AJLT\u2019s demise: no more Aidan.<\/p>\n \u201cThe woman lifted her petticoat and hurried up the twisted iron staircase. She stepped carefully in her dove grey button boots to make sure that she wouldn\u2019t stumble as she crossed the threshold and went on her way.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n I don\u2019t think Bradshaw means what she thinks she means when she says \u201clifted her petticoat\u201d. Maybe I have a gutter brain but it doesn\u2019t scan right to me. Also the \u201ctwisted iron\u201d and \u201cthreshold\u201d gives gothic horror and I\u2019m fairly sure that\u2019s not what the intended tone is, particularly when the nameless heroine is in dove grey button boots.<\/p>\n Episode three <\/b><\/p>\n \u201cThe woman had survived the treacherous journey, mostly intact \u2014 albeit dispossessed of her nightgown and carpet bag. With little more than her thoughts for company, she burrowed beneath her blankets to stave off the cold, uncertain night ahead.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n The carpet bag is ubiquitous in historical fiction \u2013 it\u2019s very Anne Shirley. But what the hell happened to the woman\u2019s nightgown? \u201cMostly intact\u201d? I just \u2026 these fragments are leading me down a dark path. I\u2019m properly confused about the timeframe now: why is she not in her new house? What is she going to wear instead of her nightgown? If we can\u2019t have a name can we at least have some detail to hold onto?<\/p>\n Episode four<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cThe woman glanced out of her train compartment, mystified \u2014 not quite sure if her taxing journey had brought her closer to, or further from, the things she most longed for.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cMystified\u201d is an apt word for all of it. Rather enjoy the general confusion but what is she longing for? We know nothing about this woman other than she\u2019s lost some intimate items and is journeying a lot.<\/p>\n \u201cThe woman threw open her windows to let the city in. She could hear the horses coming and going with their carriages, each one bringing an exciting possibility. The unexpected cool breeze on this hot afternoon reminded her that each day need not be an echo of the one before. There are endless adventures to be taken, if she simply dared to decide to take them. Putting one foot in front of the other, she stepped off the expected path and vowed to go wherever a day might take her.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n A lot of faith is put in carriages. Imagine if we thought of cars in the same way \u2013 each one full of exciting possibilities. This is good detail and does situate us in the ages of old when people were more rare and horses more common. But what is this \u201cexpected path\u201d the woman is stepping from? Wasn\u2019t she just inside the house throwing open the windows? How did she get outside? And \u201cdared to decide to\u201d is a right old clunker.<\/p>\n Episode six<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cLilies of the valley in the garden bowed their delicate white bonnets in the pounding rain as the woman inside braved the unknown.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n This is an interesting shift in perspective: the omniscient narrator is showing us the \u201cdelicate\u201d flowers in the garden being \u201cpounded\u201d by rain while the woman is inside \u2026 braving the unknown. I\u2019ve sunk into the gutter again here, but we can\u2019t pretend this isn\u2019t laden with innuendo and dripping with submissive behaviour. Why must historical women be delicate flowers? Come on Bradshaw you know better than this!\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDespite the shatter, the woman knew the break wasn\u2019t fatal. With time and care, it would soon be repaired. Because the ties that bound them were stronger than any spun glass.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n OK so she\u2019s dropped something? Something that metaphorically binds the woman to another? Is she a maid or is she perhaps freshly married to the owner of this shattered thing? Very confusing metaphors.\u00a0<\/p>\n Episode seven<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cThe woman held on to what she knew to be true.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n Good on you, girl. It\u2019s the only way. But what is the truth?<\/p>\n Episode eight<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cAfter what seemed like forever, the woman felt happiness had arrived at her doorstep, remarkably and quite unexpected, like a magnificent red bird that suddenly appears in the garden. You hold your breath and remain very still, not wanting it to fly away again.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n I don\u2019t hate this. I quite like the idea of happiness as a \u201cmagnificent red bird\u201d but would have liked the bird\u2019s species to be specified because the bird in my mind is Big Bird from Sesame Street but red instead of yellow.\u00a0<\/p>\n Episode nine<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cThe woman had thought that she and her love were very present, but now realised that they were still locked in the past. Which meant, of course, that they had no future.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cVery present\u201d is far too modern to be used in a historical novel. Also what love? Love of the self? Love of another? Did she marry an old beau or something? This is obviously all about Aidan but Bradshaw needs to work harder to flesh out the nuances of this woman\u2019s life!<\/p>\n Episode 10<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cAutumn was here, and as the leaves turned gold and the air turned crisp, the woman returned to herself. Her hours turned into days, her days turned into weeks, her pain turned into productivity. The family that would never inhabit her home, or her heart, faded from her life, the way the golden leaf faded to brown at her feet. She had done all she could. She had done all she could. She had done all she could.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n OK so it\u2019s cold again and the love interest\/husband has fled, or died or whatever. Maybe Bradshaw was funnelling a lot of her Big grief into this book, too \u2013 seems likely. This passage is bleak but solid if not a bit florid (too many leaves): I like the repetition \u2013 for the first time we\u2019re getting some insight into the woman\u2019s internal life, how she coaches herself.<\/p>\n \u201cThe woman sat in her garden. Even though summer had come and now gone, she could feel the warmth of its lingering touch on her face and body. How wonderful. How wonderful. How wonderful.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n Duncan could hardly cope with this: his plummy vowels exclaiming over Bradshaw\u2019s extended use of repetition.\u00a0 The shift in mood is fine: kind of nice to feel summer when it\u2019s winter.\u00a0<\/p>\n Episode 12<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cThe woman realised she was not alone. She was on her own.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n Bradshaw\u2019s agent wasn\u2019t keen on this but history is littered with solo women who did just fine. This pseudo-profundity is Bradshaw conjuring a new state of being into existence and giving herself a rich inner life while she\u2019s at it. I don\u2019t hate it. But it could have been so much more. Carrie\u2019s inner world \u2013 her creation of \u201cthe woman\u201d \u2013 could have anchored And Just Like That, given it a heartbeat, but just like the rest of the writing, it splutters and disappears when we need it most.<\/p>\n In a world in which Carrie\u2019s novel was published and passed on to Sarah Jessica Parker\u2019s Booker Prize reading pile I suspect SJP would have tossed it after the first page. It\u2019s hard to get hooked by a novel that refuses to name its own heroine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Claire Mabey dissects the fragments of Carrie Bradshaw\u2019s historical novel and wonders what Booker Prize 2025 judge Sarah…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[266],"tags":[18196,359,18197,18,117,18198,19,17,13235,2693,7669],"class_list":{"0":"post-21240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-booker-prize","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-comments-enabled","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-historical-fiction","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-pop-culture","17":"tag-sarah-jessica-parker","18":"tag-sex-and-the-city"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The stack on the chaise has a \u201cclassic books\u201d vibe \u2013 potentially inspo for Carrie\u2019s historical novel. Photo: Craig Blankenhorn.
\nEpisode five<\/b><\/p>\nCarrie in her garden thinking about lilies being pounded by the rain.<\/p>\n