Life in the Big Apple

Dear Fellow bibliophiles,

Sorry for the long time being away. Life has been even more complicated than usual for me.
In an earlier post, I mentioned that I had resisted reading any Jay McInerney out of resistance to the hype that accompanied the publication of his first novel, Bright Lights, Big City. For some reason, McInerney and Bret Easton Ellis were grouped together when they made their respective debuts. McInerney objected publicly stating that anyone who looked at their respective prose would not make such a mistake. He's exactly right. Bright Lights, Big City is everything that Less than Zero was not.
It is funny, endearing, and well-written. It too was quickly turned into a film starring Michael J. Fox as the nameless protagonist who was spurned in marriage by his wife Amanda, played by Phoebe Cates in the film. Having seen the film first, I was surprised by how closely the film follows the novel. Why I completely prefer McInerney to Ellis is that the former has the ability to create not only believable characters, but ones that I as a reader want to learn more about. I do care about these characters, unlike the nihilistic brats in Less than Zero. McInerney's characters are not necessarily happier than Ellis' characters, they simply have more interesting and complete lives.
This novel is loosely based on McInerney's earlier life in New York City as an aspiring writer in the 1980s. Though he too can portray the decadent and mostly empty lives of his characters, the sense of humor throughout the novel kept me going and I finished this novel in short order. My Vintage Contemporaries edition has a blurb from Raymond Carver and I can see why a craftsman like Carver would admire McInerney's work. It has a true literary quality to it and there is a heart to this novel that hooks the reader from the opening pages. McInerney's anonymous protagonist could be Holden Caulfield all grown up and coked out in the 1980s as he still suffers various "phonies" and still looks for something real and authentic. It is a quick read and one that I would definitely recommend.
Czar