The Lights May Have Dimmed, But The Book Still Holds Up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                       The only thing, girls, that does not hold up, with McInerney's debut book, is the original cover.  The Odeon has become a thing of the past, and, if you are alive, you know by now what happened to those twin towers.

                                        What you may not know was that while McInerney and Bret Easton Ellis were the two sleaze boys about town, back in the Eighties, McInerney was not sleazy in print.  His writing was taut, structured, and a pleasure to read.  On the basis of this work, he is on the top tier, with Donna Tartt and Tama Janowitz.

                                         More than any other Lit Brat Pack book I have read, "Bright Lights, Big City" reminds me of myself.  The being young, and wanting New York, expecting it to give you
everything.  The loneliness of living alone, a single person in a New York apartment, so you run around the city, telling yourself you have a life, while kidding yourself, and knowing it.

                                         Like in "Rebecca," the narrator is nameless, and, while he ran to different places and recreational pursuits than I, the resonance of the experience was the same.

                                          Unlike the hedonistic Ellis, there is a moral here, and it comes at the cost of familial confrontation, and a stunning final sentence that I had completely forgotten about, but was blown away by its rhythm and insight.

                                           When I picked up this book, re-reading it after it came out, over thirty years ago, I expected it to be the Lit Brat Pack work I would like the least.  Maybe time, and the lack of over-hype, which was in vogue at the time, have mellowed both myself and the text.  Like Tama Janowitz, it was an almost perfect fit.

                                             Surprises do abound, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!