Bright Lights, Big City
(Contains spoilers)
Bright lights, big city is Jay McInerney’s first novel published in 1984. Movie adaptation of the same name was released in 1988 which McInerney wrote screenplay himself. The name “Bright lights, big city” refers to the Jimmy Reed’s classic blues song recorded in 1961. I found this book on my mother’s bookcase and decided to give it a try. I didn’t regret it.
You, a main character, are a 24-year-old wannabe-writer, actual fact checker in a high-profile magazine in Time Square. People would commit murders in order to get where you are, but you fail to recognize that. New York seemed shining bright, full of possibilities. Your first night there was spend in Plaza, your first car ride in the streets of New York was made in limo. You had never recognized the privilege and wealth you had before you lost most of it. Since Amanda left, you have changed porcelain to plastic, to-go-cups, barely affording the rent, looking for a little excitement from bars and random acquaintances.
Your best friend Tad is everything you could imagine your worst side to be. He lures you into bars and parties with questionable people, yet you know very little about him. He shows up when you have nothing better to do and vanishes when it’s time to go to the real world again, put on your suit and tie and wake yourself up with dozen espressos. You wish you had the strength to stay home, write few pages and move closer to the Dylan Thomas without potbelly and F. Scott Fitzgerald without the messing around -dream of yours.
You feel like an outsider in most places you are: bars, work, New York and even with men who don’t appreciate your lack of knowledge about sports. For some reason you feel the need to please people and be liked by them even if they are strangers to you. You need people to see you as interesting, intellectual, who lives perfect life in Manhattan with nice apartment, eligible job and beautiful wife. This illusion of a perfect life begins to crumble down when Amanda lefts and you are forced to grief of a loss of another important woman in your life. In a lot of ways your relationships with women are formed by the memories of your mother. Vicky was believed to be wearing scotch pattern skirt when in reality it was your mother who wore pants of that pattern. The rough touch of Megan’s shower sponge on your cheek was the material of these pants. You desperately tried to find comfort for your pain. You even turned to drugs, cocaine, because as your mother said, it not only numbs the paint but maintains depressed feelings. At the very end you had no choice but to start living again and process the pain that you hold. Just like the coma baby, you have to survive in a world without your mother’s guidance.
Excellent book. Would recommend if you are even a little bit interested about the life of 1980’s New York City. It paints a raw yet beautiful image of a young man who tries to find himself and his passions in life after a family tragedy occurs. This book is about healing and moving on.
4½/5
