Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #658332 in Books
• Published on: 1997-11-03
• Released on: 1997-11-03
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Ingram
Jay McInerney's bestselling masterpiece is now a United Artists film starring one of the hottest young actors working today, Michael J. Fox. A Manhattan yuppie seems to have it all: a successful model for a wife, a job at a prestigious magazine, and plenty of wild friends. But the lights go out, and in one week his life takes a drastic plunge downward.

From the Back Cover
New York, années 80. Un garçon de vingt-quatre ans tente d'oublier son chagrin et sa déception (sa femme vient de le quitter) à l'aide de diverses méthodes éprouvées : l'échec professionnel, la dope, les boîtes. Et la littérature. Entre un défilé de haute couture, une fête ratée et une orgie de coke dans les toilettes de l'Odeon, il lui reste peu de temps pour rassembler ses esprits. Heureusement, le Destin veille au grain...

Customer Reviews

Brightly lit
"Here you go again. All messed up and no place to go."

That line sets the tone for "Bright Lights, Big City." Jay McInerney's bestselling debut stands above other urban-angst novels of the time, which tended to go with shock value. Instead, McInerney experimented with second-person narratives and a vision of a fragmented, coke-dusted New York.

"You" are a young man living in New York, and wife Amanda has recently left you for a French photographer she met on a modelling shoot. Understandably you are depressed and unhappy, and the loss of Amanda haunts your moods, especially when her lawyer urges you to sue her for "sexual abandonment," even though you don't want a divorce.

By day, you work in the fact-checking department of a prestigious magazine, where your malignant boss is getting tired of you. By night, you halfheartedly prowl clubs with your pal Tad, doing drugs and meeting women you care nothing for. Will you be able to move past your problems and become happy again?

Consider that summary a little slice of what "Bright Lights, Big City" sounds like -- the reader is the main character, which allows the reader to slip into another's skin for a brief time. Second-person narratives are often annoying, but McInerney's style is so starkly compelling that the little narrative trick pays off.

The New York of "Bright Lights, Big City" is basically a big, glitzy, hollow place, but still strangely appealing. And McInerney adds splinters of reality here and there, like the tattooed girl and Coma Baby, which add to the gritty you-are-there feel of the novel itself. His dark sense of humour comes out in "your" thoughts: "your" boss resembles "one of those ageless disciplinarians who believe that little boys are evil and little girls frivolous, that an idle mind is the devil's playground."

And while many trendy novels of the time relied on shock value and obnoxious characters, McInerney keeps it low-key. The young man is likable and sympathetic, despite his tendency towards self-pity. And the people around him -- the self-absorbed Amanda, likable Tad and nasty "Clingwrap" -- seem surprisingly realistic, as well as the minor people who flit in and out of our hero's vision.

"Bright Lights, Big City" has gained a reputation as a trendy urban novel of the 1980s. Too bad. Though the trendiness has worn off, McInerney's style and story are still worth reading.

Not a big book, but big on ideas
I loved this book when it came out decades ago. I originally had a copy of the American version (which sports the two world trade center towers in the background on the cover) and recently dug it out and read it again. This novel is not big, but the ideas it incorporates are enormous. Likened to McCrae's "Katzenjammer" with its NY arts and publishing scenes, this is one book that will not disappoint.

A truly bright star in the firmament
This novel falls just short of the American classics Huck Finn, Sun Also Rises, Gatsby, Holden Caufield, True Grit. MacInerney captured being young in New York in the 80's which means he captured being young and confused for all times. The smell of bread in the beginning brings you to the smell of bread at the end. The only other author who comes this close to sensory reproduction and getting to the "heart" is Jackson McCrae (think his BARK OF THE DOGWOOD or his CHILDREN'S CORNER with their incredible descriptions et al. The people and situations are as true to the rules of reality as fiction can be. And the walk that you and Tad's cousin take through the Village is most fetching indeed. The bricks and wooden Dutch shoes at the end of the book point beautifully to the Dutch sailor's eyes that first contemplated this continent at the end of Gatsby. The only problem I have with the book is it's a little too New Yorker, polished fiction--he never let loose the reins. Still, this is a fantastic piece of fiction, nay, history, and should be read by everyone.