SOURCE: “Success and the Single Girl,” in New York, Vol. 32, No. 16, April 26, 1999, pp. 32–37.

In the following review, Bernard focuses on Bridget's relevance to contemporary women.

At Teddy's Berry Street diner in Williamsburg, Kate Christensen is fighting a hangover. Looking tired and a bit wan, she slips out of her fake-fur coat and orders a Bloody Mary. It turns out she was up until three last night, carousing at a musician friend's dinner party, lingering over a nightcap or two at a Metropolitan Avenue dive. “Usually I drink vodka,” she says. In fact, Christensen is such a connoisseur that she concocts her own. “Ginger vodka, horseradish vodka,” she says, flagging the waiter for a pot of tea to use as a chaser. “I'm trying out all kinds.”

Except for her wedding ring, the 36-year-old Christensen is a lot like Claudia Steiner, the vodka-swilling heroine of In the Drink, her...