Bright Lights, Big City is Jay McInerney's masterpiece about alienation and grief. The plot concerns Michael, a young professional in New York. McInerney's novel set the standard for discussing the phenomenon of yuppie despair and the hollowness of a purely materialistic, drug-fueled life. Along with books like American Psycho and films like Wall Street, the book tackled the apparent soullessness of the 80s.
Michael, the protagonist, works in at a famous literary establishment, an unnamed magazine that has instant name recognition with most everyone he meets. The Atlantic or New Yorker could be possibilities. However, he doesn't work there doing what he wants to do (writing) but rather as a fact-checker, in the Department of Factual Verification. He dislikes this job, but he hopes that working there long enough he will be able to break through into the writing department. He generally likes his coworkers and isn't terrible at his job. He just can't focus, and being constantly sleep-deprived from frequent partying is really taking its toll on him.
One interesting thing that's immediately apparent is the story is told entirely in the second person. The opening line is “You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time in the morning.” Right off the bat, the novel demonstrates the profound sense of alienation and displacement Michael feels. Michael feels alienated from everyone and everything. He's come from a background of a loving family, a pleasant upbringing and a good college. But he feels distant from them, and copes with drugs and partying in New York City, where he also feels like he doesn't belong. So he feels profoundly alone and distant from everyone. Michael would probably be diagnosed with depression if he sought the help of a therapist.
His wife Amanda, a model, has left him. She called from Paris to say she wasn't coming home, with no explanation. After Amanda's abandonment, Michael's life begins spiraling out of control. He stays out partying more and more often, and does increasingly large doses of cocaine, mixed with alcohol and who knows what else. His friend Tad Allagash is an enabling and sometimes even coercive drug pusher and partier.
Eventually, Michael badly bungles fact-checking a story from a writer in France, in part due to his inability to speak French, a skill he claimed to have when he got hired. After the story goes to press, Michael is fired. Tad Allagash convinces him to leave a ferret in his former boss’ office, which they attempt to do with disastrous results. He spends a night at his coworker Megan's house. Megan cooks him dinner and listens sympathetically to him, but he tries to make multiple passes at her and eventually passes out in her bathroom in a Valium-induced stupor after pissing himself. Michael's attempts at both crime and romance are cringe-inducing and conjure memories of disciplining and awkward sexual encounters in the anxious reader.
His brother confronts him and demands he return home to visit their father. It's the anniversary of their mother's death, and the family needs to gather. It turns out that much of Michael's erratic behavior is due to his inability to cope with the loss of his mother. After his mother died, he married Amanda because he thought it was what his mother would want. After Amanda leaves him, he has nothing to keep him from grieving.
The book has excellent chapter names. Throughout the story, Michael absently follows the story of “coma baby”, a baby in the womb of a comatose mother. Two of the book's chapters reference this, “A Womb With a View” and “Coma Baby Lives!". Other chapter names are just funny. “Pygmies, Ferrets and Dog Chow” and “Linguine and Sympathy” are good.
Another nice feature of the book is the erudite and intelligent conversation. Michael has a copy of Being and Time on his shelf, along with classic works of literature. Tad Allagash's cousin Vicky studies philosophy at Princeton and is reading Spinoza's Ethics when Michael meets her. They discuss, among other things, Nagel's essay “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” and the mind-body problem. McInerney seems to have more than a passing acquaintance with the conversation and interests of the well-heeled. Besides being a novelist, he has also published wine columns for both House and Garden and The Wall Street Journal. If there are better upper crust bonafides than that, I don't know what they are.
Bright Lights, Big City is well-worth the relatively short time it takes to read. The novel is funny and poignant in the right places and does an amazing job of painting the existential angst that characterized the 80s and 90s. As we're dealing with many of the same issues today, the book seems to have something to offer. McInerney's other books also seem meritorious, although certainly less influential. Another line of interest this novel opens up is the work of the so-called “Brat Pack” of which McInerney was a member, along with Bret Easton Ellis.