Stunning

"Bright Lights, Big City" by Jay McInerney

Writing in the second person can be draining - the constant balance between the character and the reader and having to maintain both the distance and the familiarity is something few writers tackle other than in short stories (Junot Diaz is the perfect example). But Bright Lights, Big City manages to produce the first “great” second person narrative that I can think of. From the very first pages where McInerney throws us into New York night life, we are confronted with a character who is both strange and familiar who is moving in a New York that is both strange and familiar. As a fact checker at a major publication who is getting over the fact his wife, who happens to be a model, has left him, the protagonist struggles with a dual desire to be isolated and comforted by others.

What is most striking about this book is the prose. It is both clean and smooth and has a way of moving you back and forth between action and description. This book can be read in a single night and you find yourself so attached to this guy who is as messed up as can be, yet you feel so sorry for him as he confronts his brother, uses more drugs than you can imagine, and struggles to write a novel. He is the anti-hero spawned in a world after the Beats made names for themselves, and I can honestly day that this novel may be a stronger piece of fiction than On the Road or even Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.

This is a gem and should be treated as such.