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"Before you know it as the years go by, you're just like other people you have seen, with all those peculiar human ailments. Just another vehicle for temper and vanity and rashness and all the rest. Who wants it? Who needs it? These things occupy the place where a man's soul should be." -- Henderson the Rain King

Friday, December 19, 2008

Bright Lights, Big City

Book #49 on my reading list this year was Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City.

If you had to pick just one book from the 80's to stick in a time capsule it'd probably be this one. Yuppies? Check. Cocaine? Check. Michael J. Fox? Check. It's also smart, dynamic (2nd person!) and a great read.

Why I Read This One
It's a book that pops up frequently in discussions of the best novels of the past 25 years. I'd avoided it a long time due to the movie, which is odd since I've never even seen the film and shouldn't harbor any ill will towards it. The thing that finally pushed me over the precipice was McInerney's associations with Raymond Carver who he studied under and who blurbed BLBC as a 'rambunctious, deadly funny novel that goes right for the mark - the human heart'. Anyone who's alright with Carver is alright with me. Didn't hurt that the two other blurbs on my copy were Richard Ford and a comparison to Catcher in the Rye.


Wikipedia
Salon interview
Fan page
EW's 100 New Classics

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posted by Jamie at 12:55 AM