Bright Lights, Big City (novel)
| Bright Lights, Big City | |
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 First edition cover |
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| Author(s) | Jay McInerney |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Vintage Books |
| Publication date | August 12, 1984 |
| Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
Bright Lights, Big City is an American novel by Jay McInerney, published by Vintage Books on August 12, 1984.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
It is written about a character's time spent caught up in, and notably escaping from, the mid-1980s New York City fast lane. It is one of the few well-known English-language novels written in the second person,[1] and its main character is unnamed. He is a writer who, by day, works as a fact checker for a high-brow magazine—likely based on Harpers or The New Yorker, where McInerney himself once worked as a fact checker—for which he had once hoped to write. By night, he is a party-goer, a cocaine user, seeking to lose himself in the hedonism of the 1980s yuppie party scene, often going to the nightclub Heartbreak.[2] His wife, Amanda, recently left him and he copes with this by pretending nothing happened and telling no one that she's gone. Initially hopeful that she will return someday, he eventually resorts to searching for her at a fashion event. He obsesses over every item she owned in his apartment, every modeling photo and every club she visited, even repeatedly visiting a mannequin based on her. Also, his partying is affecting his work and he appears to be on the verge of getting fired by his temperamental boss.
The novel would go on to be the source material for the 1988 film Bright Lights, Big City, which was also written by McInerney. In 1999, an off Broadway stage musical was produced by the New York Theater Workshop, written by Paul Scott Goodman and directed by Michael Grief, with orchestrations and musical direction by Richard Barone.[3]
[edit] Putative source
The title of the book matches that of a 1961 blues song by R&B musician Jimmy Reed. His song was later covered by a number of artists, including The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Neil Young, Donald Fagen and Jason Mraz. The first verse of Reed's song ("Bright lights, big city...gone to my baby's head....I tried to tell the woman but she...don't believe a word I said") is a gloss on McInerney's novel. The protagonist's wife Amanda is drawn to New York's bright lights, eases into a modeling career that neither she nor her husband take seriously, and is ultimately seduced by that brightly-lit and vapid world in a way that leads her to abandon him.
[edit] References
- ^ Steven Wu's Book Review of Bright Lights, Big City
- ^ Kornbluth, Jesse: "Inside Area: The Wizardry of New York's Hottest Club", New York Magazine, pg 35, March 11, 1985.
- ^ Article of New York Times about the musical
