
John Barrett McInerney Jr. is an American writer. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City, Ransom, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls, and The Last of the Savages. He edited The Penguin Book of New American Voices, wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film adaptation of Bright Lights, Big City, and co-wrote the screenplay for the television film Gia, which starred Angelina Jolie. He is the wine columnist for House & Garden magazine, and his essays on wine have been collected in Bacchus & Me (2000) and A Hedonist in the Cellar (2006). His most recent novel is titled The Good Life, published in 2006.
With the publication of Bright Lights, Big City in 1984, Jay McInerney became a literary sensation, heralded as the voice of a generation. The novel follows a young man, living in Manhattan as if he owned it, through nightclubs, fashion shows, editorial offices, and loft parties as he attempts to outstrip mortality and the recurring approach of dawn. With nothing but goodwill, controlled substances, and wit to sustain him in this anti-quest, he runs until he reaches his reckoning point, where he is forced to acknowledge loss and, possibly, to rediscover his better instincts. This remarkable novel of youth and New York remains one of the most beloved, imitated, and iconic novels in America.
In his breathlessly paced new novel Jay McInerney revisits the nocturnal New York of Bright Lights, Big City. Alison Poole, twenty going on 40,000, is a budding actress already fatally well versed in hopping the clubs, shopping Chanel falling in and out of lust, and abusing other people's credit cards. As Alison races toward emotional breakdown, McInerney gives us a hilarious yet oddly touching portrait of a postmodern Holly Golightly coming to terms with a world in which everything is permitted and nothing really matters.
Brightness Falls is the story of Russell and Corrine Calloway. Set against the world of New York publishing, McInerney provides a stunningly accomplished portrayal of people contending with early success, then getting lost in the middle of their lives.
In The Good Life, Jay McInerney unveils a story of love, family, conflicting desires, and catastrophic loss in his most powerfully searing work thus far. Clinging to a semi-precarious existence in TriBeCa, Corrine and Russell Calloway have survived a separation and are wonderstruck by young twins whose provenance is nothing less than miraculous. Several miles uptown and perched near the top of the Upper East Side's social register, Luke McGavock has postponed his accumulation of wealth in an attempt to recover the sense of purpose now lacking in a life that often gives him pause. But on a September morning, brightness falls horribly from the sky, and people worlds apart suddenly find themselves working side by side at the devastated site.Wise, surprising, and, ultimately, heart-stoppingly redemptive, The Good Life captures lives that allow us to see-through personal, social, and moral complexity-more clearly into the heart of things. Ten years on from Brightness Falls, Russell Calloway is still a literary editor although in a diminished capacity; his wife, Corrine, has sacrificed her career to watch anxiously over their children. Across town Luke McGavock, a wealthy ex-investment banker, is taking a sabbatical from making money, struggling to reconnect with his socially resplendent wife, Sasha, and their angst-ridden teenage daughter, Ashley. These two Manhattan families are teetering on the brink of change when 9/11 happens. The Good Life explores through the lens of catastrophe that territory between hope and despair, love and loss, regret and fulfillment. But, ultimately, this is Jay McInerney doing what he does best, presenting us with the life of New York City in all its moral complexity.
Jay McInerney's first novel since the best-selling The Good Life a sexy, vibrant, cross-generational New York story -- a literary and commercial read of the highest order.Russell and Corrine Calloway seem to be living the New York dream: book parties one night and high-society charity events the next; jobs they care about (and actually enjoy); twin children, a boy and a girl whose birth was truly miraculous; a loft in TriBeCa and summers in the Hamptons. But all of this comes at a high cost. Russell, an independent publisher, has cultural clout but minimal cash; as he navigates an industry that requires, beyond astute literary taste, constant financial improvisation, he encounters an audacious, expensive and potentially ruinous opportunity. Meanwhile, instead of seeking personal profit in this incredibly wealthy city, Corrine is devoted to feeding its hungry poor, and they soon discover they're being priced out of their now fashionable neighborhood.Then Corrine's world is turned upside down when the man with whom she'd had an ill-fated affair in the wake of 9/11 suddenly reappears. As the novel unfolds across a period of stupendous change--including Obama's historic election and the global economic collapse he inherited -- the Calloways will find themselves and their marriage tested more severely than they ever could have anticipated.
From the bestselling author of Bright Lights, Big City and Brightness Falls comes a chronicle of a generation, as enacted by two men who represent all the passions and extremes of the class of 1969. Patrick Keane and Will Savage meet at prep school at the beginning of the explosive '60s. Over the next 30 years, they remain friends even as they pursue radically divergent destinies--and harbor secrets that defy rebellion and conformity.From the Trade Paperback edition.
'I'm sick of all this pointless glamour,' his glamorous girlfriend said. 'I want a simple life.' If only Connor McKnight had listened. Now Philomena is off to California, allegedly on a fashion shoot, but he doesn't know where she is staying and a sinking feeling tells him that she might never come back. Connor's friend Jeremy Green is no help: he is the 'famous short-story writer' (which they both agree is an oxymoron) with an imminent publication date and some people holding his dog to ransom for reasons too Machiavellian to blurb. Connor's sister Brook, genius mathematician and anorexic, is too busy anguishing over Rwanda and Bosnia. His editor at CiaoBella!, 'a lifestyle magazine for young women', is only concerned about Connor's profile of Chip Ralston, the celebrity of the month whose PR fortress has suddenly become impenetrable. Thank goodness for Pallas, a knock-out table dancer with a heart of gold. As the reader wonders with Connor what's happened to Philomena, if Jeremy will get his dog back, and whether our hero will get his interview with Chip, the wonderful narrative roars away at a stunning clip. Jay McInerney is on absolutely top form in this hilarious (and serious) novel about celebrity, romance and 20th-century literature.
Since Christopher Ransom has been living in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, he has devoted himself to the study of karate. But soon he finds himself threatened by everything he thought he had left behind - a sequence of bizarre events whose consequences he cannot escape.
A transsexual prostitute accidentally propositions his own father. A senator's serial infidelities leave him in hot water. And two young lovers spend Christmas together high on different drugs. Discover a world of sex, excess and urban paranoia where worlds collide, relationships fragment and the dark underbelly of the American Dream is exposed.
In the two decades since Bright Lights, Big City reinvigorated contemporary fiction, Jay McInerney can claim a great many accomplishments, including the mantle that Salon has given “the best wine writer in America.” Of his previous collection, Bacchus and Me, Robert M. Parker, Jr., “Brilliant, witty, comical, and often shamelessly candid and provocative.” And The New York Times “McInerney’s wine judgments are sound, his anecdotes witty, and his literary references impeccable. Not many wine books are good reads; this one is.”In A Hedonist in the Cellar, he gathers more than five years’ worth of essays and continues his exploration of what’s new, what’s enduring, and what’s surprising, giving his palate a complete workout and the reader an indispensable, idiosyncratic guide to a world of almost infinite variety. Rieslings from the Finger Lakes, Armagnac from Gascony, powerhouse amarones from Valpolicella, the most fearsome critics in England, chocolate-friendly bottles from all over the globe, new developments in Chile and Argentina—these are only some of the delights now ready to be savored in a collection driven not only by wine itself but also the people who make it and those whose enjoyment is matched by their curiosity. Full of terroir and flavor, svelte personalities, and keen insight into the trade, these are irresistible essays for anyone enthralled by the manifold pleasures of wine.
Jay McInerney on wine? Yes, Jay McInerney on wine! The best-selling novelist has turned his command of language and flair for metaphor on the world of wine, providing this sublime collection of untraditional musings on wine and wine culture that is as fit for someone looking for “a nice Chardonnay” as it is for the oenophile.On “Is Dom Pérignon worth four bottles of Mo‘t & Chandon? If you are a connoisseur, a lover, a snob, or the owner of a large oceangoing craft, the answer . . . is probably yes.”On the difficulty of picking a wine for a vegetarian “Like boys and girls locked away in same-sex prep schools, most wines yearn for a bit of flesh.”On telling the difference between Burgundy and “If it’s red, French, costs too much, and tastes like the water that’s left in the vase after the flowers have died, it’s probably Burgundy.”On the fungus responsible for the heavenly flavor of the dessert wine called “Not since Baudelaire smoked opium has corruption resulted in such beauty.”Includes new material plus recommendations on the world’s most romantic wines and the best wines to pair with a meal
This new collection by the acclaimed novelist—and, according to Salon, “the best wine writer in America”—is generous and far-reaching, deeply knowledgeable and often hilarious. For more than a decade, Jay McInerney’s vinous essays, now featured in The Wall Street Journal , have been praised by restaurateurs (“Filled with small courses and surprising and exotic flavors, educational and delicious at the same time” —Mario Batali), by esteemed critics (“Brilliant, witty, comical, and often shamelessly candid and provocative” —Robert M. Parker Jr.), and by the media (“His wine judgments are sound, his anecdotes witty, and his literary references impeccable” — The New York Times ). Here McInerney provides a master class in the almost infinite varieties of wine and the people and places that produce it all the world over, from the historic past to the often confusing present. From such legendary châteaus as Margaux and Latour and Palmer to Australia and New Zealand and South Africa, to new contenders in Santa Rita Hills and Paso Robles, we learn about terroir and biodynamic viticulture, what Champagnes are affordable (or decidedly not), even what to drink over thirty-seven courses at Ferran Adrià's El Bulli—in all, an array of grapes and wine styles that is comprehensive and thirst inducing. And conspicuous throughout is McInerney’s trademark flair and expertise, which in 2006 prompted the James Beard Foundation to grant him the MFK Fisher Distinguished Writing Award.
From the writer whose first novel, Bright Lights, Big City, defined a generation and whose seventh and most recent, The Good Life, was an acclaimed national best seller, a collection of stories new and old that trace the arc of his career over nearly three decades. In fact, the short story, as A. O. Scott wrote in The New York Times Book Review, shows “McInerney in full command of his gifts . . . These stories, with their bold, clean characterizations, their emphatic ironies and their disciplined adherence to sound storytelling principles, reminded me of, well, Fitzgerald and also of Hemingway—of classic stories like ‘Babylon Revisited’ and ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.’ They are models of the form.”Only seven of these stories have ever been collected in a book, but all twenty-six unveil and re-create the manic flux of our society. Whether set in New England, Los Angeles, New York or the South, they capture various stages of adulthood, from early to budding to entrenched to resentful: a young man confronting the class system at a summer resort; a young woman holed up in a remote cabin while her (married) boyfriend campaigns for the highest office of all; a couple whose experiments in sexuality cross every line imaginable; an actor visiting his wife in rehab; a doctor contending with both convicts and his own criminal past; a youthful socialite returning home to nurse her mother; an older one scheming for her next husband; a family celebrating the holidays while mired in loss year after year; even Russell and Corrine Calloway, whom we first met in McInerney's novel Brightness Falls.A manifold exploration of delusion, experience and transformation, these stories display a preeminent writer of our time at the very top of his form.
An astonishingly funny and poignant new collection of short stories from Jay McInerney - the master of modern American prose - which, in true McInerney style, examines post-9/11 America in all its dark and morally complex glory.His characters include a young woman holed up in a remote cabin while her (married) boyfriend campaigns for the highest of all offices, a couple whose sexual experiments cross every line imaginable, a young socialite called home to nurse her mother, and an older one scheming for her next husband.From the streets of downtown New York during the 2003 anti-war march and the lavish hotel rooms of the wealthy social elite, to a husband and wife who share their marital bed with a pot-bellied pig, the characters in these stories - steeped in betrayal and infidelity - search for meaning while struggling against each other, colliding as the old world around them fractures and dissolves into a modern era full of new uncertainties, where ghosts of loss hang in the air.McInerney's writing has a crackling humour and a feverish, clear-sighted brilliance that perfectly underpins the lives of people living in modern America. These stories are deftly constructed, subtle, insightful and heartbreaking. 'Steeped in history but yet alive in the present', this new collection is a companion to the sweet madness of life.
Story of My Life: For twenty-year-old Alison, Manhattan is a playground. She attends Lee Strasberg's Acting School (when she can get the fees together) and is smart, sarcastic and sussed. Her life is a carnival of gossip and midnight sessions of Truth or Dare, and her cocaine-bashing friends and flirting flatmates all crave satiation. She's fallen deeply in lust with Dean, although she can't do anything about it until that nasty present Skip Pendleton left her with clears up. Story of her life, right? But in a world of no consequences or cares, Alison seems to be heading for a meltdown. Brightness Falls: Their moment was of the brief, shining sort when everything seemed possible: the gold rush of the 1980s, when the best and the brightest vied with the worst and most craven for riches, fame and the love of beautiful people. With all the force and cunning enterprise of Manhattan itself, Brightness Falls captures lives-in-the-making: men and women confronting their sudden middle-age with wit and low behaviour, or fear and confusion, and occasionally even a little honesty and decency. None of them, ever, would be the same again.
Sei un figlio. Adulto, realizzato, appena separato da tua moglie. Hai sempre pensato che tua madre fosse una donna tranquilla, anche troppo. Soddisfatta della sua vita e di te. Fedele a tuo padre, credente, timorata di Dio. Silenziosa, senza rimorsi, senza rimpianti, senza una voglia di vivere che le gridassse dentro. Ora stai per scoprire che non è mai stato così.
A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection That summer in New York, everyone was wearing yellow ties; the stock market was coming into a long bull run; and Corrine and Russell Calloway quit smoking. From the writer whose Bright Lights, Big City defined a generation and the city of New the taut, darkly funny, alternately sultry and wistful story of the Calloway clan, who also appear in The Good Life and Brightness Falls. A selection from How It Ended, a career-spanning collection of McInerney’s short fiction, which show him to be a master of the genre, “brim[ming] with all the attendant guilt and thrills and self-defeating impulses of an extramarital tryst . . . Brilliant” (The Boston Globe). An eBook short.
by Jay McInerney
Rating: 4.0 ⭐
This short story revolves around three brothers who are grieving the loss of their mother and centers on their struggle to spend the holidays together among the turmoil that follows. Amidst the holiday season, the boys and their father deal with their own agony at the effects of the eldest brother’s public writing about a family – whether it is their own is never fully clear. As we all head into Thanksgiving, this story will remind us that this holiday of thanks, coming together, and celebrating family can also often be a bumpy ride."With a talent for building," as Sam Tanenhaus wrote on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, "narratives at once intimate and expansive, plausible and inventive.” McInerney brings us a story that will linger in your imagination long after the Thanksgiving table is cleared. “The Madonna of Turkey Season” was one of the anchor stories in his 2009 book How It Ended: New and Collected Stories, which was named one of the 10 best books of the year by Janet Maslin of The New York Times.
A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection. In the northern hills of Pakistan, by the border with Afghanistan, a drug deal goes horribly wrong. Trey’s friend has been captured. His girlfriend, Michelle, succumbs to her heroin addiction. And the only person who Trey can speak to is the Pashtun holding him captive.In this beautiful and tragic story, McInerney’s first and a favorite of George Plimpton’s, the much-lauded author of the forthcoming novel Bright, Precious Days, explores in classic form the alienation facing urban American youth, loss, and the seductive pull of drugs. Selected from the collection How It Ended. An ebook short.
by Jay McInerney
Rating: 1.5 ⭐
L’interesse per la upper class americana, votata egoisticamente al proprio esclusivo piacere, caratterizza tutta la produzione di Jay McInerney, che ci offre uno spaccato cinico e disincantato della vita dissoluta di personaggi di successo, tutti impegnati in relazioni a lungo termine, ma attratti in modo incoercibile dal tradimento; è infatti questo uno dei temi principali delle due short stories qui presentate. Nel primo racconto, I Love You, Honey, Lora assiste in diretta televisiva al crollo delle Twin Towers di New York e, preoccupata, cerca di contattare il marito. Quando finalmente risponde al telefono, Liam è ancora ignaro del disastro.La spiegazione è piuttosto ovvia, ma la gioia di ritrovarsi spinge Lora a non farsi troppe domande. La tregua però dura poco; e la moglie sarà disposta a colpire anche se stessa pur di ferire il marito. Nel secondo racconto, Putting Daisy Down, Bryce e Carly sono una coppia sposata che, in attesa del primo figlio, si è appena trasferita fuori città.Anche in questo caso la moglie tradita (e informata della relazione adulterina dall’amante stessa) sceglierà un modo molto indiretto e subdolo per punire il marito. McInerney ci pone quindi di fronte a due coppie disfunzionali molto simili: i mariti fedifraghi sono uomini deboli e ipocriti; le donne, livide di rancore, escogitano crudeli vendette ma non rompono il matrimonio pur di non rinunciare al loro status altoborghese.“Somehow, three years before, they’d both believed that marriage would be the cure for a malaise they’d never named or spoken about…”“In qualche modo tre anni prima avevano entrambi creduto che il matrimonio fosse la cura di un malessere al quale non avevano dato un nome e del quale non avevano neppure mai parlato…”
by Jay McInerney
by Jay McInerney
Barcelona. 22 cm. 196 p. Encuadernación en tapa dura de editorial con sobrecubierta. Traducción de Elena Rius. Traducción Bright lights, big city .. Este libro es de segunda mano y tiene o puede tener marcas y señales de su anterior propietario. 8422625547