Bright Lights, Big City (novel)
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- For the 1988 film, see Bright Lights, Big City (film)
Bright Lights, Big City is a novel published by Vintage on August 12 1984 by the American author Jay McInerney.
It is written about a character's time spent caught up in, and notably escaping from, the mid-1980s New York fast lane. As the book is one of the few well-known English novels written in the second person, its main character is unnamed. He is a writer with potential who, by day, works as a fact checker for a literary magazine for which he had hoped to write. By night, he is a partier, a cocaine-addict, and an all-around degenerate. Bright Lights, Big City is a scathing criticism of the superficiality pervasive in 1980's New York society.
The novel would go on to be the source material for both a 1988 film and a 1999 musical both by the same name.
[edit] Plot summary
"All messed up and no place to go. It's six a.m., the party's over and reality is threatening to intervene in the frenetic, powder-fuelled existence of a young man who should have everything but might just end up with nothing at all. His wife, a famous model, has left him. His job at a prestigious magazine can't last much longer. And the life he's been living in Manhattan's fast lane as if he owned it is about to end. Even a bright young man eventually has to face the biggest question of them all: which is worse, living an illusion--or losing it?"
Taken from the back cover
[edit] Putative Source
The title of the book matches that of a 1950s blues song by r&b musician Jimmy Reed. His song was later covered by a number of artists, including The Rolling Stones and The Animals.
[edit] Influence
Indie rock luminaries Half Japanese play a track called "Bright Lights, Bright City" off of their 1988 record Charmed Life. The lyrics faintly recount the plot of the book.
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