Book Review: Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City is the kind of book I think of when I think of short literary novels. It’s the kind of book I might expect from someone with a Master’s degree in writing to produce, and something I might expect to read in a Master’s program. One of those two characteristics doesn’t necessarily produce the other, so it underscores how craft-forward the novella is. And it’s an engrossing story to boot.
It’s punchy with vivid prose and a rare use of second-person POV. I was struck by how easily I slipped into the world of the unnamed protagonist. McInerny doesn’t seem to spoon-feed unless it’s long swaths of background about family or colleagues. Everything else we get in-scene, dramatized, which I appreciated.
The protagonist seems like the kind of guy who makes all the wrong choices. It’s bad to the point that you have to wonder if he isn’t doing it on purpose. He buys a fake Cartier watch, negotiating a better price, as if he really thought it could possibly turn out to be real. Then drugs from a rando on the street that could be anything. Then he buys a ferret. A ferret! No self respecting New Yorker would ever buy one of those fake watches, let alone a bag of coke from a rando. The ferret, maybe, but definitely not the watch or the coke! Later, of course, we discover that he actually is doing stupid stuff on purpose, whether he knows it or not, because of his mother’s relatively recent passing. He doesn’t mention her at all, and really doesn’t mention any of his family or his life growing up beyond that he grew up in Bucks County (represent!).
The first conspicuous hint of some deeper trouble comes early on via his ignoring a phone call from his brother. His colleague Megan relays the message, and we think nothing of it the first time. But he ignores a second message, and that’s really where you know it’s probably setup for a real whopper. So by the time Michael, the brother, shows up on the protag’s front stoop, we’re ready for the protag to take off running, as he does.
The story seems to set up Amanda, the protag’s estranged soon-to-be-ex wife, as the source of his trouble. We can sense a definite pain of rejection, but it doesn’t seem so intense as to make him behave so self-destructively. It seems possible, but as if there’s got to be more to it than what he mentions, even though he crashes a Vogue fashion show to find her and gets kicked out. Even though he tries to hook up with his ex colleague Megan (who, in retrospect, is like a mother figure to him, especially in how she receives his advances and in the note she leaves the morning after).
Only in the scene with Michael, towards the end, are things are revealed. We learn his mother might have inspired his coke habit, or at least brought some significance to it. She says it helped with her depression - either the protag’s trying to kill his depression or he’s subconsciously clinging to his mother, or both, but it becomes clear that he’s self-medicating. We learn he probably helped her OD on morphine to end her life. All the self-destructive behavior feels like running away, like self-flagellation. Who could blame him? The parties with Tad Allagash aren’t about the parties. He doesn’t even really enjoy them.
When he meets Vicky, we see the life that feels more meant for him. After Vicky leaves, he calls her the next morning, but we don’t see her after that. He goes right back to carousing. Then the Michael scene, the reveal about the protag’s past, etc. Michael helps him understand what’s happening in his head. He openly expresses his fed-up-ness with Tad and bails on a party. Then he calls Vicky and pours his heart out. And to her credit she takes this call really well. It’s a hopeful ending that suggests he’s turning his life around.
It’s a doozy of a story and probably one of the best books I’ve ever read. I was not a little tickled that the book’s New York felt a whole lot like the New York I knew, except with dirtier subways. I had some fun times there in my early twenties. Not like our protagonist, but it was fun. He got fired from his job, I got fired from mine. His mom died, my dad died. Parallels! He’s moving on, and his life’s looking up. Even though it’s been a while for me since NYC and my dad, I’m glad I moved on. I guess we’ll both be on the job hunt together.