Bright Lights, Big City

...and here is another kind of book review, this one is of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City. I read it right after I finished Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, and thought it would be a quick and easy read, that I would be done with it in no time. Then I got started, and my first impression was that it's rather strange. In fact, I found it hard to get used to Inerney's unique style and such a narrative I had never come across before. I even considered putting it off and not bothering with finishing it at all, thinking that maybe it simply wasn't my cup of tea. 

But then somehow I managed to get used to this special syle as well as to the fact that Bright Lights, Big City is written in present tense, second person narrative. I probably had never read anything written in second person ("You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy."/1/), so I guess that's why I had problems understanding the story at first, getting the setting, and the narrator's point of view. However, a few pages later it all cleared up; in fact, I slowly grew fond of the story, and by the end I was in love with it. 

The novel is about a 26 year old Ivy League-educated young man, and up-and-coming, aspiring writer with high hopes who seemingly lives the American dream: he lives in New York City, has a beautiful, blond, model wife, and works for a prestigious magazine. However, the truth is that he's a mess; in fact, he is having the crisis of his life, because his wife has dumped him, he hates his job (Verifying facts... it's got nothing to do with writing of any kind.), he gets fired, and he cannot write...Still, his main issue is not all these, but that he cannot deal with the loss of his mother who had died of cancer. He's trying to run away from his problems by going from parties to parties from dusk till dawn, getting drunk, and taking all kinds of drugs in all kinds of bathrooms with all kinds of women... He's generally lost in the Big City, just wondering around aimlessly, trying to hide, but there's got to be a point when he faces his issues. ("You know you will have to face her sooner or later, so it might as well be later. Much later." /83/) I don't want to give away all of the story, so let me just say that there is, indeed, light at end of the tunnel, just like Esther Greendwood finds the light by the end of  Bell Jar. (Which is by the way quite my favorite novel by my undoubtedly favorite author, Sylvia Plath. I found some similarites between these two novels, so that's why I'm mentioning Bell Jar here.)

So Jay McInerney has managed to completely mesmerize me by the end of Brights Lights, Big City, for I fell in love with his style, the New York City atmosphere he can paint so wonderfully, and once again I got to peek into the private lives of the High-and-Mighty. Most importantly, the reason why I love and appreciate this book so much is because it raises such a vital question that most of the twentysomething, just-out-of-college, aspiring young-adults have to face at some point of their lives: will I remain only a high hope with a bright future that I could have had, or am I gonna be able to live up to the high expectations? Am I gonna be able to make it and stand still in the Big City, make all my dreams come true, and move up from aspiring to hotshot?

Am I?

Are you?