About this title: The hero of this novel is sleepwalking through his job on a chic New Yorker-style magazine by day; by night he pursues pleasure in the coke-fuelled clublands of Manhattan. But pleasure is elusive and his wife, a glamorous model, has left him. By the author of "Story of My Life".
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 1987
ISBN-13:9780394756882ISBN:0394756886
Description: Very Good; Pages clean and binding tight. Crease in spine and front cover. Shipped, usually within twenty-four hours, from a smoke free environment in Michigan. (GFSMPB) 0394756886. 238 pages. read more
Edition: Vintage Books ed.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1987
ISBN-13:9780394756882ISBN:0394756886
Description: Very Good. No DJ Issued. Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 238 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: First edition. 1st printing.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 1987
ISBN-13:9780394756882ISBN:0394756886
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Minor center cover crease. Mass-market PB. Glued binding. 238 p. Audience: General/trade. Reviewed in 'Playboy' as "a 'Catcher in the Rye' for the MBA set". The MGM /UA film as directed by James Bridges and starred Michael J Fox. read more
"This is one of those books I missed when it first came out... while the 1980s was my "coming of age" decade, I was a few years behind McInerney and company. All I knew about this book was that is spawned a not so good movie (sorry Michael J Fox-- love you but without even seeing the flick I can see you were miscast) and that it was supposed to be the voice of the 20-something generation in the early '80s.
It was definitely a walk down memory lane of what was hot in the early/mid 80's but it ended up being so much more... what a nice surprise when a book turns out to be deeper and more meaningful than you expected. Despite the "stream of consciousness" style of writing, I found myself feeling for this nearly unlikeable main character... I was adrift with him as he pushed onward into his personal downward spiral. Just as I was ready to throw the book down-- it turned a corner and totally took me by surprise-- and quietly became a different kind of book. It was a one-night read, and if you remember the 80s in its glory and haven't read the book (or seen the movie), definitely pick this up... you just might find a sweet surprise amidst the arrogant, shallow trainwreck of a storyline."
"It is a strange quirk of cultural totems that "Bright Lights, Big City" is held out as the novel of the Masters of the Universe '80's. With a narrator working at the New Yorker and struggling to find his emotional center, the Go-Go Gadget Capitalism of downtown seems very far away. It is as if "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" was given the honor of standing in for the Mecha dot com attack of the'90's because it had a younger guy in San Francisco. Setting aside the confused cultural touchstones, "Bright Lights" still stands on its own as a twenty-something coming of age novel, while finding time to linger over the fall of grim New York; an Ivy League, older money "Fortress of Solitude" for those who will not admit to ever staying home to watch "Batman.""
"I loved this book. I read it mostly because I'd been told it was a classic in writing exercises - it's in the second person, and so more than one writing teacher had preached to me about it's originality in its use of "you," an originality I was encouraged never to replicate, only to admire. But I liked the book as much more than an exercise. Admittedly, the coke addled days of mid-80's NYC aren't really a period with which I'm familiar, but there was a lot to recognize in the book from a contemporary New Yorker: from the misplaced pride in a menial job at a New Yorker like magazine to the unfulfilling, boozy world of downtown clubs. Somehow, even in the second person, never knowing the name of the main character, McInerney creates a relatable person out of a man who's made a series of bad choices or no choices at all. I went straight to the bookstore to pick up more McInerney novels upon finishing."
"I read this book and thought, huh, people really did do a lot of cocaine in New York in the 80s.
Bright Lights, Big City has all the despair cloaked in decadence, self-hatred and self-aggrandizement of one of New York magazine's most pathetic (and sexless) "Sex Diaries" --- and has about the same heft. Fortunately it's about as much fun to read too. McInerney's narrator slowly falls apart with the right measure of self-awareness and wit (on a last-ditch ill-conceived attempt to rescue a drunken night out, he notes, "Since you are already here, though, you owe it to yourself to make a sustained assault on the citadel of good times") necessary to prevent the second-person narration from dragging. And though it's hard to really sympathize with a protagonist whose "haunting" ex-wife and mother are constructed so flimsily, it's easy to root for a creatively stifled fact-checker who is always hungover and a few bucks short of cab fare.
A review published shortly after the book's release complained of it's "unappealing mix of trendy and maudlin" and predicted the book would have little staying power. Au contraire, Pierre, the naked ambition of this thin debut is exactly what makes it an entertaining read more than two decades later."
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