Claire Mabey dissects the fragments of Carrie Bradshaw’s historical novel and wonders what Booker Prize 2025 judge Sarah Jessica Parker might think of it.
Watching the final season of And Just Like That is the closest I’ve come to taking hallucinogenic drugs. Tuning in each week was both a necessity and an anguish: sliding into a portal of unthinkable leaps, dead ends and Patti LuPone’s “accent”.
My astute colleague Anna Rawhiti-Connell outlined just how far the Carrie Brad-show franchise has fallen and yet I’m not sated. I’m still working through the reasons why I will miss gazing into the void of Carrie’s massive house and wondering what it would be like not to be allergic to cats and to have squillions of dollars and Vivienne Westwood dresses and never be satisfied.
But the part I’ll miss the most is analysing the crap out of Carrie’s novel. It was Carrie’s downstairs tenant Duncan that started it. That pipe-puffing non-event jizzing over the line “The woman wondered what she had gotten herself into.” 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’s wild encouragement and Carrie’s growing confidence. Carrie’s renewed literary life felt to me like the only remaining facet of the spiky, ambitious Bradshaw we once knew. It’s just a shame that she still sort-of relied on a man’s approval to usher her there.
Pipe-puffin’ Duncan from And Just Like That.
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. She’s regularly papped with a novel in her arms and has her own publishing imprint, SJP Lit. She’s such a literary nut that The Booker Prizes came calling and just like that she’s influencing literary culture like Carrie influences fashion.
All of which leads me to wonder: what would Sarah Jessica Parker think of Carrie Bradshaw’s novel?
Fragments of Bradshaw’s novel leaked out of every episode like a faint cry for help. A nameless voice from within the chaos. We weren’t given much but what we do have is worthy of close reading – a sort-of review of the novel that never was.
Episode one
“The woman wondered what she had gotten herself into.”
Duncan might struggle to keep it in his pipe but I can’t get past those first two words. “The woman” 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’t forgive Bradshaw’s agent for not requesting one, too.
Episode two
“Sitting 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’t her past, it was the present. May, 1864.”
Pinocchio had less wood. I’ve a mad desire to chop “and insecurities”. But I did rather enjoy the “oohhhh, I see what she’s doing” moment when Bradshaw’s voiceover said “May, 1864.” Bradshaw’s 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’s one blessed thing about AJLT’s demise: no more Aidan.
“The 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’t stumble as she crossed the threshold and went on her way.”
I don’t think Bradshaw means what she thinks she means when she says “lifted her petticoat”. Maybe I have a gutter brain but it doesn’t scan right to me. Also the “twisted iron” and “threshold” gives gothic horror and I’m fairly sure that’s not what the intended tone is, particularly when the nameless heroine is in dove grey button boots.
Episode three
“The woman had survived the treacherous journey, mostly intact — 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.”
The carpet bag is ubiquitous in historical fiction – it’s very Anne Shirley. But what the hell happened to the woman’s nightgown? “Mostly intact”? I just … these fragments are leading me down a dark path. I’m 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’t have a name can we at least have some detail to hold onto?
Episode four
“The woman glanced out of her train compartment, mystified — not quite sure if her taxing journey had brought her closer to, or further from, the things she most longed for.”
“Mystified” 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’s lost some intimate items and is journeying a lot.
The stack on the chaise has a “classic books” vibe – potentially inspo for Carrie’s historical novel. Photo: Craig Blankenhorn.
Episode five
“The 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.”
A lot of faith is put in carriages. Imagine if we thought of cars in the same way – 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 “expected path” the woman is stepping from? Wasn’t she just inside the house throwing open the windows? How did she get outside? And “dared to decide to” is a right old clunker.
Episode six
“Lilies of the valley in the garden bowed their delicate white bonnets in the pounding rain as the woman inside braved the unknown.”
This is an interesting shift in perspective: the omniscient narrator is showing us the “delicate” flowers in the garden being “pounded” by rain while the woman is inside … braving the unknown. I’ve sunk into the gutter again here, but we can’t pretend this isn’t laden with innuendo and dripping with submissive behaviour. Why must historical women be delicate flowers? Come on Bradshaw you know better than this!
Carrie in her garden thinking about lilies being pounded by the rain.
“Despite the shatter, the woman knew the break wasn’t fatal. With time and care, it would soon be repaired. Because the ties that bound them were stronger than any spun glass.”
OK so she’s 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.
Episode seven
“The woman held on to what she knew to be true.”
Good on you, girl. It’s the only way. But what is the truth?
Episode eight
“After 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.”
I don’t hate this. I quite like the idea of happiness as a “magnificent red bird” but would have liked the bird’s species to be specified because the bird in my mind is Big Bird from Sesame Street but red instead of yellow.
Episode nine
“The 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.”
“Very present” 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’s life!
Episode 10
“Autumn 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.”
OK so it’s 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 – seems likely. This passage is bleak but solid if not a bit florid (too many leaves): I like the repetition – for the first time we’re getting some insight into the woman’s internal life, how she coaches herself.
“The 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.”
Duncan could hardly cope with this: his plummy vowels exclaiming over Bradshaw’s extended use of repetition. The shift in mood is fine: kind of nice to feel summer when it’s winter.
Episode 12
“The woman realised she was not alone. She was on her own.”
Bradshaw’s agent wasn’t 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’s at it. I don’t hate it. But it could have been so much more. Carrie’s inner world – her creation of “the woman” – 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.
In a world in which Carrie’s novel was published and passed on to Sarah Jessica Parker’s Booker Prize reading pile I suspect SJP would have tossed it after the first page. It’s hard to get hooked by a novel that refuses to name its own heroine.