Book Review: Bright Lights, Big City, title taken from a 1961 blues song by Jimmy Reed, was the first novel of the 1980's "Brat Pack" when a new generation of writers seemed to have appeared. Possibly the best novel written in the second person, it succeeds brilliantly. A short book with a lot going on. Unlike so many novels where work and employment is an afterthought or unnecessary, here work (or fear of firing) is one of the central themes. For most people work is the center of their world, putting far more time and energy into their job than any other aspect of their lives. (Okay, maybe less so nowadays when work-life balance is a thing.) The characters in the novel are developed to varying degrees, but all their relationships are based on appearances -- none of them thrive because they only relate superficially. Bright Lights, Big City has a manic energy balanced with existential angst, but funny, finding a valid metaphor in living life as a coma baby. This is also a novel about an aspiring writer that will naturally appeal to other aspiring writers, McInerney being well aware that he's writing in the semi-autobiographical, score-settling tradition handed down from Hemingway and Fitzgerald, with definite nods to both. If writing a thesis paper, the unnamed narrator's lurching efforts toward puritanism would be an interesting and creative subject. Bright Lights, Big City is the second book I've read recently about someone's mother dying young of cancer, which is too close to home. Also a 1988 film with Michael J. Fox, Phoebe Cates, and Dianne Wiest. It may not be a great film, but everyone involved gives it their all. [5★]
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