Jay McInerney (born in 1955 in Hartford, Connecticut and christened John Barrett McInerney, Jr.) is an American writer. He was one of the Brat Pack authors.

He returned to Greenwich Village, New York City in 2005 after living near Nashville with his third wife for several years. He has two children, Maisie McInerney and John Barrett McInerney, III.

His works include Bright Lights, Big City; Ransom; Story of My Life; Brightness Falls; and The Last of the Savages. He also edited The Penguin Book of New American Voices and wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film adaptation of Bright Lights, Big City. He also wrote the screenplay for "Gia," starring Angelina Jolie. He has a new novel released January 2006 titled "The Good Life."

McInerney’s career began with the zeitgeist, Bright Lights, Big City the title of which his then-wife Merry McInerney thought up when she was a grad student at Syracuse University (it is also the title of a famous blues song by Jimmy Reed). Published in 1984, it was unique at that time for its depiction of cocaine culture in second-person narrative. Bright Lights, Big City established his reputation as part of a new generation of writers, labelled the ‘literary brat pack' by the media. After the successful publication of Bright Lights, Big City, publishers started looking for similar works about young people in urban settings. Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero published at the time was initially promoted as following McInerney’s example, further helping the press to seal the image of the new ‘Brat Pack' writers. Throughout his career McInerney has struggled against the strong, almost indelible, image of himself as both the author and protagonist of Bright Lights, Big City. ‘There's always been a personal element to my critical reception as a writer; people say that I'm too much of a public figure, too successful. My relationship with the press is an odd hall of mirrors.’ – Beatrice Interview, by Ron Hogan, 1997, http://www.beatrice.com/interviews/mcinerney/

He was mentioned as an icon for the 1980s on the television comedy Mystery Science Theater 3000 in the episode "Hobgoblins".

Bibliography

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• Bright Lights, Big City (1984)
• Ransom (1985)
• Story of My Life (1989)
• Brightness Falls (1993)
• The Last of the Savages (1997)
• Model Behavior (2000)
• How It Ended (2001)
• Adventures in the Wine Cellar (2002)
• The Good Life (2006)

Films

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• Bright Lights, Big City was made into a film in 1988, directed by James Bridges and starring Michael J. Fox, Kiefer Sutherland and Phoebe Cates. Jay McInerney wrote the screenplay.
• The ‘cocaine’ that Michael J. Fox snorted in the film Bright Lights, Big City was really powdered milk.
• The name of Michael J. Fox's character, Jamie Conway, supposedly is an anagram of author Jay McInerney's name (it does not really work out, giving "Jay McIne-" with the letters a, o and w left over). In the novel, the primary character's name is never given and is referred to only in the second person (‘you’).

Trivia

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Bret Easton Ellis used McInerney’s character Alison Poole (Story Of My Life), in his novel Glamorama: Victor Ward (a character from Ellis’ novel The Rules of Attraction) is having an affair with Alison in the first part of the book set in NYC.

Jay McInerney studied writing with Raymond Carver, and worked as a fact-checker at The New Yorker, much like his unnamed protagonist in "Bright Lights, Big City."

Jay McInerney himself has a cameo role in Bret Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park, attending the Halloween party Bret hosts at his house.

External links

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• Publisher's Website (with a book tour podcast)
• Author's homepage
• Interview with Guardian (UK) from 2000
• IMDB entry for Bright Lights, Big City
• The Bat Segundo Show #29 (podcast interview)

1955 births | Living people | American novelists | American writers | Irish-Americans

Jay McInerney