Boekverslag Jay Mclnerney

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Datum ingestuurd:	16 juli 2001
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Titel:	Bright lights, big city
Auteur:	Jay Mclnerney
Jaar van uitgave:	1984
Aantal pagina's:	182
Moeilijkheidsgraad:	bovenbouw havo/vwo
Verfilmd als:	Bright Lights, Big City (1988)

Auteur:	Jay Mclnerney
Geboren:	13 januari 1955
Populaire titels:	1984Bright lights, big city (7) 1989Story of my life (4) 1986Ransom (0)

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In his in 1985 published novel 'Bright Lights, Big City' Jay McInerney uses a very unusual style. He has written the story in the second person, which makes you think that story is about you. This maincharacter, who hasn't got any name, but is being called Coach by his friend Tad, is a Manhattan yuppie, who seems to have it all: a successful model for a wife, a job at a prestigious magazine, and plenty of wild friends.

The story opens in a Manhattan nightclub with 'You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning.' But, of course, that is exactly the type of person that he has become, hopping from nightclub to nightclub, looking for cocaine and women, with 'no goal higher than pursuit of pleasure'. Coach is well on his way to blowing his job at a magazine. Eventually he is fired after turning in an error filled piece on France that he was supposed to be fact checking.

He has become like this, because his wife, Amanda, recently left him to pursue her modelling career. She just called him from Europe and told him she would stay there. He had been the one who helped her getting this far, and when she climbed high enough, she abandoned him. The first part of the story this makes him feel very sad, he can't understand why she left him, but later on, he finds out he should be glad, because he had many doubts about marrying Amanda, which he did, because she really wanted it. At this point he can't understand why he married her.

When they meet again in a nightclub, at the end of the novel, she is with an impossibly handsome young man, who she claims to be her fiancé, but he turns out to be an escort. The woman Coach is dancing with that night turns out to be transsexual. No one is real; Everything is artificial.

His brother catches up to him and they discuss the loss of their mother, who had been sick for a long time, and died about a year before. Coach is at last, able to confront his own sense of loss. The story ends with coach down at the docks, trading his sunglasses for some fresh baked bread, which probably has to be seen as taking a communion. Dumping his sunglasses, which makes bright light, and taking a communion, which makes turn back towards his old -better- life.

The special style and the compelling downward spiral of Coach's life have made this story a best-seller.