While it's mildly interesting for fans to consider exploring the backstory of a character who appeared to have sprung fully formed wearing a tutu the middle of Manhattan, Bushnell herself doesn't appear concerned with staying true to the clues of Carrie's previous life glimpsed during the run of the series. In just a few paragraphs, we learn that young Miss Bradshaw didn't have a boyfriend in junior year – tell that to David Duchovny.  Likewise, her dad is pushing her to go to Brown – despite the fact that future Carrie's string of toxic boyfriends can at least partly be attributed to her father abandoning her as a child.  There's also a (failed satirical?) reference to the nearly 500-page DSM-III as "this tiny manual about mental disorders," and a book cover that riffs on Stephen Sprouse's Louis Vuitton clutch, which any self-respecting fashionista knows debuted in the 2000s.

Maybe the average 16-year-old looking for a breezy spring break read won't care much about such anachronisms, but give her – and those older ladies who are quietly gobbling up "Twilight" – a little credit for preferring a good yarn. While the HBO series always offered occasional wit and indulgent eye candy, Candace Bushnell herself remains one of the most godawful writers in creation. "My heart pounds in my throat; if I open my mouth, I'm afraid it will jump out," she writes. "I shake my head." It's young adult writing, all right, in the sense that it's authentically juvenile.  And though Reagan-era Carrie is equally "obsessed with feminism" and her white patent leather boots, I couldn't help but wonder: Why the hell would anybody read about her?

One female guard admitted to "swapping spit" with him and exchanging sexy notes, one of which detailed how she "couldn't wait to screw him, fuck him, ride his dick." (She denied any actual sexual contact, although he says they had oral sex ten times.) Murphy tried to get her to bring him tobacco and a cellphone, but she claims to have resisted his requests. Another guard developed a "limited emotional attachment" to him, according to an official report, and sent him a card that began: "I'm in love with you." He also convinced his therapist to give him hundreds of dollars and both perform and receive oral sex several times. Two other employees also engaged in unspecified misconduct with Murphy. What's more, after these cases emerged, he was transferred to another facility, where a female food worker is already under investigation for being compromised by Murphy.

It seems likely the man has a skill for persuasion and manipulation -- many criminals do. He also may have a particular knack for charming women. But is it really reasonable to paint these women as his victims? Murphy's therapist tries to explain how this made-for-porn scenario played out: "He kissed me one day in my office and I just thought, 'What the fuck did I just do, what just happened?" she told investigators. "From that point on I just, I felt like I couldn't do anything, I couldn't say no to him, I couldn't get myself out of it. It's like he had that over me, and he continued to push." In the documents published by TSG, she doesn't mention any explicit threats or coercion from Murphy; it seems she felt imprisoned by her own embarrassment, shame and an understandable fear for her job.

An unnamed female employee, who lost her job due to her dalliances with Murphy, told the AP that the prison should have better protected its female workers from one-one-one time with Murphy, who was widely known as a skilled charmer and manipulator. "Everyone needs to be held accountable," she said on condition of anonymity. "I need to be held accountable, and I think I was. The prison needs to be held accountable, and Michael Murphy needs to be held accountable." Another worker, who was disciplined for failing to report Murphy's transgressions with one of her coworkers, said: "They need to do something about protecting women from predators like him, I know he's a predator," she said. "I know he's done it to several people before and, I didn't know until after the fact, after all this stuff happened, but I found out all about Michael Murphy."

The truth, though, is that workers go through training about how to respond in these types of scenarios, because these scenarios aren't all that uncommon; and female prison employees are behind a disproportionate percentage of sexual misconduct cases. It isn't clear why that is, exactly, or whether most feel victimized as a result -- but the argument that prisons need to do more to protect female jailers from being seduced by inmates makes me uneasy. Lady-guards are up against quite a challenge already in keeping under control a population of criminals, most of whom are probably bigger, stronger and scarier than they are. Do they really need to be treated as so emotionally fragile that they need extra-special protection against manipulation? Not to mention, the sexual double-standard at play is awfully unfair to men. What would be the response to a male prison guard who claimed to be a victim because a female inmate seduced and manipulated him? Riotous laughter, that's what.

The latest person to successfully garner attention for concern-trolling the Oscar-nominated actress is the CEO of AcaiSupply.com, who made TMZ, among other outlets, by offering Ms. Gabby a one-year supply of weight-loss pills "in return for her glowing testimonial after she sheds her unwanted pounds." (I'm not sure if this company is one of the ones Better Business Bureau spokesperson Steve Cox was referring to when he said, "they lure customers in with celebrity endorsements and free trial offers, and then lock them in by making it extremely difficult to cancel the automatic delivery of more acai products every month." But if you like, I'll wait while you go to the Acai Supply site and see how long it takes you to find a working link to the news that after paying shipping and handling for your free trial, "You will be charged $119.93 in 14 days for our Free Refill Program unless cancelled.")

"After viewing recent pictures of you strolling around Santa Monica earlier this week," begins the CEO's letter to Sidibe, "we at AcaiSupply.com have decided we can no longer sit back and keep our mouth's [sic] shut! ... the only way you can reach your goal of someday winning that Oscar is by being active, fit and most of all healthy!"

And clearly, the way to become "active, fit and most of all healthy" is by taking pills you bought off the Internet. Snark aside, though, the guy does have a point. I mean, Gabby -- can we talk? -- let's be real here.  Posthumous Oscars notwithstanding, we all know how hard it is to win major awards unless you're clearly in the pink of health. As concerned people have no doubt pointed out to you, obesity is correlated with Type 2 diabetes, and do you know who has that disease and has also never won an Oscar? George Lucas. Are you going to tell me that's a coincidence?

Or think of Jane Fonda, who struggled with anorexia and bulimia throughout a large portion of her career -- and only won two of the seven Oscars she was nominated for. While at his "lowest point in terms of addictions," Robert Downey Jr. only won Golden Globe and SAG Awards for some stupid, girly TV show -- that's a big step down after an Oscar nomination for work he did while less high, am I right? Speaking of "Ally McBeal," that show barely won anything important while at least three of the actresses on it were suffering from eating disorders -- just a single Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy and Golden Globes for the show and Calista Flockhart, stuff like that. Before her untimely drug-related death, Judy Garland merely landed a juvenile Oscar, though she was nominated twice more. Similarly, Marilyn Monroe's most noteworthy win was a Golden Globe, John Belushi earned but a single Emmy, and Chris Farley got practically nothing but a gazillion dollars and an MTV Movie Award. Patty Duke only won one Oscar at 16 -- years after her allegedly abusive managers started providing her with alcohol and drugs -- and later, just three Emmys before her bipolar disorder (which may have been related to her anorexia, ongoing substance abuse issues and suicide attempts) was finally diagnosed.

I could go on, but I trust you get the picture, Gabby: History shows that when the Hollywood establishment spots someone who's obviously in ill health and/or engaging in self-destructive behavior, they're loath to ignore it and hand that person more jobs and awards anyway. Actresses suspected of having dangerous relationships with food, in particular, have a notoriously difficult time finding work; as you surely know, the only extremely thin women really thriving in the industry are those who maintain their weight by eating sensibly and chasing around after their kids, not those who resort to starvation, surgery or drugs. (And when an already thin young woman loses a substantial amount of weight, it's truly heartwarming to see how folks express their sincere concern instead of judging and turning away.) This is because Hollywood cares, Gabby -- just like anonymous Internet commenters and serious journalists and Acai berry diet pushers care, deeply, about your health.

Me, I don't care so much about your health, if I'm being honest. I mean, I wish you comfort, happiness, longevity and other good things -- but since I've never seen you look anything but radiant, you never appear high or drunk in public, you've spoken about how you've never been skinny and regular exercise doesn't change your size much, you apparently aren't struggling anymore with debilitating body-related shame and anxiety, and when the word "infectious" is used to describe you, it invariably relates to your charm and good humor, I assume you're feeling OK. And if there comes a time when you don't, I can't imagine why you and your doctor would be interested in my opinion on the matter, so I've gone ahead and filed the whole issue under "Not My Business; Don't Care." Please forgive me, Gabby, if that makes you feel that I, as a serious lady journalist, am not taking a sufficient interest in your career.

What I am interested in is the lack of good roles out there for women in general, and for fat women and African-American women in particular. I'm interested in the fact that most of these people expressing such deep concern for your health and your prospects as an actress are completely uncritical of the forces that usually keep women who look like you from landing big roles, because it's so much simpler to criticize you instead. I'm interested in the fact that even if you somehow starved yourself down to a size 0, you still couldn't do a damned thing about the fact that in 82 years, no woman with your skin tone has ever won best actress -- only one has even been in the ballpark -- and how that data point gets ignored while everyone's saying only your weight will prevent you from being the next Meryl Streep. I'm interested in how you've already, on your first frickin' try, scored a leading role in an award-winning film and been nominated for a best actress Oscar (not to mention practically every other possible award) and how even articles fretting about your future are full of casting directors singing your praises and news about your upcoming projects -- while the "She has no future" side is represented only by Howard Stern and an entertainment columnist. (I also love how said entertainment columnist sniffs, "the only roles she'll have a shot at playing will be down-market moms and hard-luck girls working at Wal-Mart"; Mo'Nique and Jennifer Aniston might disagree that such roles are the sign of a dead career.) I'm interested in why, as that same columnist says, "no one in the executive world looks like [you]," much more than I'm interested in whether a hypothetical thinner you would be easier to cast, in fact.

But still, I have my own career to think about here, and I'm not about to let this opportunity to grab an easy 15 minutes pass me by. I'm sure you understand the importance of striking while the iron is hot, Gabby.

So I'm saying it: Gabourey Sidibe is obviously unhealthy and needs to lose weight if she wants to have a successful career! Do you hear me, people? She'll never work again, much less win an Oscar, if she doesn't learn to hate herself like a normal fat person and get rid of all that weight that's making her look like she's at death's door every time she appears in public. I know nobody likes hearing it -- and certainly, nobody likes saying it -- but sometimes, a serious journalist has to go out on a limb and express an unpopular opinion like "Fat is bad." And now that I've bravely done so, I expect this post to go viral by morning, folks. My agent and I are counting on you.

Hunter sat down with a reporter from GQ for an interview, which the article purports is simply a transcript of Hunter's words. Yet, there's only a few pages in this transcript, though we're told early on that the reporter -- Lisa DePaulo -- spent the night with Hunter and her daughter, Frances Quinn. So yes, these are Hunter's words -- but they're her words filtered through a magazine and a reporter, and this is no ordinary reporter. Lisa DePaulo was originally hired to ghostwrite the tell-all memoir of Andrew Young, the man who pretended to be the father of Frances Quinn, back in the halcyon days when it still seemed like her real father might still be president, or at least politically significant.

So we have a reporter with a history (and a big incentive to get as many news-worthy quotable lines as she can) spending the night in a rented house with a woman that everyone thinks has an agenda: wreck John Edwards's home and get her hands on his money. Get famous in the process. Being may be free, after all, but living costs money.

Hunter comes off poorly in the interview, but not in the way you'd expect. She doesn't seem money-hungry or fame-hungry. She seems... fooled. She seems to be the only woman in the world who doesn't understand that John Edwards is capable of very bad things:

Why do you think he loves you?

Um… How do I answer that? [long pause] I mean, I could give so many answers. I could give a spiritual answer, that I reflect back to him large parts of himself that were unconscious. Like, he's a huge, huge humanitarian. He is very kindhearted and sweet. He's very honest and truthful. And all of that was hidden.

But the irony of what you're saying—right now, most people think he's the most untruthful person in America.

You know, it's so fascinating to me how people perceive things. Everyone talks about how Johnny has fallen from grace. In reality, he's fallen to grace. He is integrated. He is living a life of truth. He has grown in awareness and humility. He had all these things within him, but they weren't the guiding, leading principles of his life. Now they are.

"He is living a life of truth." Who says that, after a man has gone on national television and denied he fathered your child? His child? No amount of cynicism accounts for that. Only simple, hopeless naivete -- only terrible, misguided love.

Did you and Johnny ever talk about wedding plans?

No. To date [laughs], we have not spoken about any wedding plans.

I find myself a little bit heartbroken for Rielle Hunter. She made some very bad choices, but she doesn't even consider them choices. She believes the universe brought her to Johnny Edwards, and the universe brought them a child, and the universe will allow their love to last forever.

If Rielle Hunter didn't exist, I'm sure we'd have to make her up, just to ensure that we had someone to blame for John Edwards's implosion and for our own blindness to his narcissism. If Rielle Hunter didn't exist, there would have most likely been some other woman -- even Hunter seems to allow for this, as she mentions there had been affairs before.

So why is Rielle Hunter the one we hate? Why is she the one getting attacked? Reading her interview, I can see how the much-ballyhooed pantless pictures came to be -- how hard would it be to talk a woman this naive into taking a few sexy shots? How hard would it be to talk a single mother of a two year old, who's been stuck in her own house because of paparazzi threats, who's seen herself vilified and mocked in every possible national news venue, who's come down to living in a one-bathroom rental house after months of traveling as part of a glamourous political entourage, into doing a glamourous Jennifer Aniston-type photo shoot? Don't worry, honey, we'll never publish them. Don't worry, honey, this sex tape will never get out.

Is Rielle Hunter really the naive woman who appears in GQ's pages? Or is she the cynical, media-savvy huntress that she's more often portrayed as? I'm not actually sure -- but I think the first is as plausible as the second, at least until she signs a book deal or shows up on "Oprah."

This happened. Like, this photograph actually exists, people.

Beyond that head-shaker, there is the revelation that Hunter -- who seems every bit the self-righteous, self-mythologizing New Age kook she's been portrayed as during her years of media silence -- fancies herself as a romance guru, a mistress turned relationship expert. Her romantic approach can be most succinctly summed up as: the exact opposite of Elizabeth Edwards'. In Hunter's view, she has gotten right everything that Elizabeth got wrong. Johnny, as she calls him throughout the interview, is 100 percent truthful with her, Hunter says, because "he has no fear that I'm going to abuse him." She continues:

And I believe what happened in his marriage is, he could not go to his wife and say, 'We have an issue.' Because he would be pummeled. So he had a huge fear. Most of his mistakes or errors in judgment were because of his fear of the wrath of Elizabeth. He's allowed himself to be pushed into a lot of things that he wouldn't normally do because of Elizabeth's story line. And the spin that she wants to put out there. He was emasculated. And you know, the wrath of Elizabeth is a mighty wrath.

Hunter clearly sees herself as Edwards' savior. (Their relationship seems built on dependency: He needs her and she needs him to need her.) Elizabeth is the punishing matriarch, whereas Hunter is the anything-goes maternal type -- she's basically like, "Sure, you can have a chocolate bar for breakfast, Johnny. Whatever my little prince wants!" She's seen her Johnny make poor decision after poor decision, but instead of saying anything, she remains mum and lets the little man figure it out in his own time. When the interviewer asks Hunter whether she ever encouraged Edwards to come clean about the affair, and his love-child, she replies:

Um, once again, in a male-female relationship, you can offer -- I mean, the way that I have learned to keep a relationship going is to offer your advice when asked for it, and love unconditionally when it's not taken. It's beyond difficult. To allow a man to be a man. The biggest mistake that I find is that women attempt to make men women. You know, we want them to be like we are. We want them to get it immediately and do things the way that we want them to do them. And men are men. And I love him for being a man. But oh, my God, yes, it's been infuriating so many times.

God forbid a woman challenge a man's masculine delusions. She explains that she is only now speaking publicly about the affair and the baby because "Johnny" has admitted to it all. "I didn't feel like I could ever speak until he did that. Because had I spoken, I would have emasculated him. And I could not emasculate him." No, never that -- then she would end up like Elizabeth: abandoned by her husband of 30-plus years and dying of cancer. Hunter continues, "Also, it is not my desire to teach my daughter that when Mommy's upset with Daddy, you take matters into your own hands and fix Daddy's mistakes. Which I view as one of the biggest problems in all female-and-male relationships." Instead, Mommy pats him on the head and smiles smugly as she waits for Daddy to figure it out for himself. Later in the interview, she explains that "he's doing the best he can ... with the awareness level he has." She continues with a laugh: "He's a man." 

You see, ladies: You can disrespect and emasculate your man, you just have to make him think he's king. I've never been so convinced that these two deserve each other.