Sex and the Other City
The first rule of television seems to be: if something works once, do it again. Sarah Jessica Parker’s production company has reportedly optioned the novel Prospect Park West to turn into a TV show. The book, by former sex columnist Amy Sohn, who also wrote the companion book for HBO’s Sex and the City, chronicles…
The first rule of television seems to be: if something works once, do it again. Sarah Jessica Parker’s production company has reportedly optioned the novel Prospect Park West to turn into a TV show. The book, by former sex columnist Amy Sohn, who also wrote the companion book for HBO’s Sex and the City, chronicles the lives, urges, and dissatisfactions of four Park Slope mothers. Here’s how The Post summed it up this morning: “The book creates a scathing portrait of Park Slope’s mommy brigade — of which Sohn is a breast-feeding member — as a parade of unsatisfied thirty- and forty-something moms sizing up their plights relative to all the other stroller-pushers at the playground. Few are having sex — at least not with their spouses.” It’s definitely the Sex and the City formula, but who knows if it will take off? Gawker asks the more important question: will it ruin Park Slope? There is already a festoon of strollers; will Berkeley Place now be clogged with red double-decker buses?
Sarah Jessica Parker’s Sex & the Stroller Set Show [Gawker]
Treading on a Slippery Slope [NY Post]
Is Prospect Park West the New SATC? [BuzzSugar]
Brenda, you are brilliant!
I went back and read the two pages, I agree with those who wonder who signed this woman up for a book contract. Talk about superficial, trivial, made up nonsense that’s not even well written. Park Slope will survive this, it’s survived worse.
“well as a woman with good style I think for the most part the type of woman that lives in BK is different than the type that lives in Manhattan. I do feel there are more “natural” types that live in PS….”
Agreed! Keep in mind that in the early days of gentrification in Park Slope, lesbians were at the forefront, along with the latter day hippie types who started the Co-op. Even today’s lawyers and high-end media folks in the Slope tend to be people who dress down when they’re at home. Most wouldn’t live in the Slope if they didn’t appreciate the underlying lesbian/hippie aesthetic and find it relaxing and comfortable. Personally, I love living in a neighborhood where you can go to a gourmet restaurant in jeans and not feel out of place. (Having said that, I do tend to wear my jeans-and-T-shirt outfits in more a MILF way than a dowdy LL Bean way. Just sayin’….)
As for the book, I can’t tell if it’s meant as social satire, or as withering critique of the kind this blog is famous for when discussing Park Slope and what it’s come to represent, or whether the author truly identifies with the narrator and agrees with the sentiments she expresses. In either case, it has certainly tapped into the prevailing zeitgeist and will get lots of attention, at least locally. Whether a national TV series will get much following is another matter, though given the popularity of Real Housewives of NYC, I suspect it may.
Heather, I didn’t read the Gawker extract until now, admittedly it does look pretty bad. But ‘My Old Man’ was sexy and funny, imho of course. Not Saramago or Coetzee by any means, but I dug it.
Wassup with typing women by neighborhood? If a woman is intelligent, has character, and is in reasonably good shape, then she looks good to me. Plenty of them in the Slope and elsewhere. Frankly, high-maintenance women with a closet full designer shoes turn me off (and I suppose the feeling is mutual).
If any of you went in thinking this book was a serious literary effort, you get what you deserve. I’m sure it ranks right up there with the Collective Works of Jackie Collins.
I thought the two pages on Gawker were thisclose to misogynistic drivel and basically out of touch with attitudes today, and then I read these comments and wonder if Amy Sohn isn’t the most enlightened person in Brooklyn today. What is with you people?
I am worried that Amy is crying in her coffee this morning when she realizes it says SHAM in the book and not SAHM. WHere is a copy editor when you need one? That’s a crucial acronym in a book like this. THE crucial acronym I’d think.
“after a couple of risque text msgs…..would put it together enough to enter ther arena of “attractive”
How about a couple of risque posts on Brownstoner.com? or Parkslopeparents.com?
” it reeks as deeply offensive–not merely to the mothers, nannies, and Brooklynites that it crudely attempts to caricature, but to anyone with a mind or heart. ”
—isnt this what happens all the time on Brownstoner and is happening here on Brownstoner comments ?
whether talking about people of PS, Williamsburg, BEdStuy, etc.
fsrq – so right on. since living for a couple of years in WB, i am sometimes shocked at how down right fugly the women are in PS. saw a 30 something woman with visibly grey, brillo like hair wearing boot cut (ouch!) jeans and some sort of suede clog with her kid at lulu’s. i lived in PS and PH for years, so was probably used to the frumpy factor which now frightens me. the women are like people in rural suburban towns. they are anti-urban, anti-city. guess this is why the food co-op thrives.