Book #26: Bright Lights, Big City

Book #26: Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney

July 8, 2013


New York City is the most vastly populated city in the US, with over 8 million people (maybe closer to 9?). I've never been to New York myself. My only trips to the northeast have been to Boston and New Hampshire, when I had family living out there (they've since relocated back to California). I like Boston from a historical aspect, all the old buildings and streets and stuff. I've always been interested in it, if I haven't been a big history nerd. But the northeast is somewhat known for not being as friendly as, say the Midwest, and...well, I have tender feelings, and I happen to think that people in my hometown, for the most part, are really very nice and polite people, all things considered.

Anyway, of course, NYC is a big part of popular culture. Many famous sitcoms take place in NY, like Friends or How I Met Your Mother. Sex and the City (which I love, by the way, I still enjoy the reruns, but I thought the first movie was only okay and the second movie was horrible), of course, takes place in New York. It's historically significant, too, as it was the "passageway" to the country for people coming from European countries (Statue of Liberty, hello?). I remember reading somewhere, prior to downloading this book to my Kindle Fire, that every New Yorker should read Bright Lights, Big City. After doing so myself, I sort of wonder why.

The story of the main character (unnamed and referred to in the second person; that style worked for the narrative, I thought) is pretty unspectacular, so I guess it really could have been the story of any young educated New Yorker in the '80s. The main character has had a pretty shitty year. First his mother died (this, for some reason, isn't revealed until pretty far into the story, though it's hinted at a little in a couple of places when the main character mentions disappointing his father when he got fired, or not wanting to tell his father that his wife left him). His wife Amanda became a model and left him to live in Paris. However, when she was back in New York and ran into him at a party, she was there with a male escort (uh, maybe...his buddy Tad might have made that up to cheer up the main character, who, wired up on coke, had a laughing fit when he finally came face-to-face with his wife again for the first time in months). But he's over his wife, and may have a new relationship springing up with a Princeton grad student.

But at the end of the book, his life is pretty much shit. Not that it was great to start with. Abandoned by his wife, he goes out and gets all coked up with his crazy friend Tad all the time, when really he claims to just want to stay home and read a book. He's a writer (sort of), well-educated, and he works for a prestigious magazine. But his coke habit gets in the way of him being able to do his job well, and after messing up a piece that he was supposed to fact-check (that's what he does, a job that he finds very dry and dull, when he would rather work in Fiction), he gets fired. Then he and Tad let a ferret loose in the office, and he leaves a drunk coworker, an old man at that, lying on top of an overturned book shelf in his boss's office. This dude is a hot mess.

His brother shows up on his doorstep and the main character runs away from him. I laughed aloud when that happened. But Michael eventually catches up with him at his apartment, and the brothers have a physical fight before reconciling. They go out and have some drinks, talk about their mother (the main character hasn't been able to get closure about her death), go back to his apartment. He snorts like 8 lines of coke while Michael falls asleep, goes out with Tad, and that's when  he runs into Amanda. Then on the way home, he trades his sunglasses for a bag of fresh bread, and starts eating it on the street. And that's the end of the book.

I'd maybe view this as a kind of coming-of-age novel. I mean, the character is only 24. That still seems young to me; a year younger than me, and I definitely don't feel old yet. Of course, I did throw my back out two weeks ago (that put me out of the mood for reading for a little while), and I found the second grey hair of my life that same week, so I'm not exactly feeling young and sprightly here. But I definitely feel like I'm still "developing," though I guess we all are. This main character is definitely in the process of developing. I wish that I could see how it goes, but that will require him leaving the city, I think. Going with his brothers and father to Michigan to spread his mother's ashes at last, to gain some perspective on his life and his situation. Divorced (not even yet), jobless...what's keeping him in New York, besides coke and parties? And he doesn't even seem to like the parties...although he is developing a drug addiction.

It seems pretty normal, though, for the time and place. As the main character clears out his desk after being fired, he finds some coke at the bottom of the drawer. He lines it up on the desk and offers it to a coworker, who must be at least 10 years older. She doesn't even hesitate in snorting it up. Even his seemingly straight-laced brother Michael agrees to some coke, but falls asleep before he can take it, I guess? Was coke in New York in the '80s like cigarettes in the '50s and '60s...everybody just did it? I mean, I wasn't surprised or shocked by the main character snorting it from a toilet seat in a club with a couple of women...that I would expect.

Anyway, he gets a nose bleed on the street before he buys the bread, but I don't know if he's thinking of giving up coke. The last lines of the book (which ended very strangely, very abruptly, it seemed) indicate that he is at a new beginning, but nothing is mentioned or indicated about getting off drugs. Well, drugs weren't his big problem at the start. They didn't kill his mother, and they didn't send his wife away. In fact, if the narration is to be believed, he was a pretty good husband. Maybe, maybe not. I found myself thinking that the guy was kind of a douche, sort of pitiable, but kind of an asshole. It's like, okay, if you don't want to go out and party, then don't go out and party...just stop bitching about it! His wife really was horrible to him, and it's unfortunate that there was not more closure there, but he did say that he was done with it. Maybe that was true.

I feel somewhat the same way about this book as I did about Fear and Loathing...in that it does give a snapshot of an important time and place in American history and culture. New York in the 1980s. I wouldn't necessarily call this an essential read for all New Yorkers; I'm sure that the main character's misadventures would now seem a little out-of-date for today's scene. However, at least I could feel something about the main character (a bit of pity, and while, yeah, he could be a stupid asshole at times, he seems like he had a decent heart, and I must admit that I could relate to him a little...I wonder if that was an effect of the narrative style?), other than annoyance and amusement.

I've read a couple of different comparisons between McInerney's work and that of Bret Easton Ellis. Besides characters who are young urban-dwellers, upper-middle class, and it being the 1980s, I don't see the similarities. Granted, I have yet to read any Ellis. I can't get my hands on any through the library; he must be banned. From what I know, his characters are psychotic killers or drug fiends (I wouldn't call the main character in this book a fiend, just an average everyday addict) or child rapists, the scum of the earth. The main character in this text wasn't at all a bad guy. He was a relatable guy, a guy who'd had a hard time lately, still immature in his years in spite of his experiences, somewhat of a dumb ass. I might speculate that he was an Everyman for 1980's New York City.

Women love Sex and the City not only because the bold sexuality of these characters, but also because they were so relatable. It was a thing for a while to be like "Oh, I'm a Charlotte" or whatever. Miranda was smart and strong, Carrie was intelligent but open to love, Charlotte was lovely and soft and wanted everything to be beautiful, and Samantha was a woman who was very strong in her sexuality, to say the least. Strong, successful women having good sex...who wouldn't want to relate to that? (And not snorting coke, either).

A Midwestern icon, the Field of Dreams. The Midwest, and Iowa itself, isn't all farm lands and small towns. Unfortunately, many of those communities are suffering (meth isn't a very positive contribution, for one thing), while urban centers are growing and thriving.