He reminisces about his relationship with Amanda, has a boozy lunch with the aged staff writer Alex Hardy, and meets Tad’s attractive and intelligent cousin, Vicky Hollins. The narrator occupies his time for several days while the article goes to Typesetting. The night that he finishes his assignment, he goes out clubbing with his friend Tad. He does a middling job on correcting the text and turns it in to his boss, Clara Tillinghast, whom he knows wants to fire him. The narrator has been assigned an article on French elections penned by a notoriously unreliable staff writer. On Monday morning, the narrator goes to work at a highly-esteemed literary magazine where he works as a fact-checker in the Department of Factual Verification. He slowly makes his way back to his apartment in Lower Manhattan, where he catches the scent of freshly baking bread-a smell that reminds him of a happy time during his marriage with his estranged wife, Amanda White. At dawn, the narrator leaves the nightclub and takes a lonely walk toward the Hudson River. His friend, Tad Allagash, led him here and then disappeared. The unnamed narrator of the novel finds himself at yet another night club on yet another late night, talking to yet another young woman whom he doesn’t want to talk to.

In 2006, Time magazine cited Bright Lights, Big City as one of nine generation-defining novels published in the 20th century. McInerney went on to write nearly a dozen additional works, including two books on wine-none, however, matched the success of his debut novel.

It was published in the journal’s Winter 1982 issue. Do You Know Where You Are?” to The Paris Review. Before publishing his bestselling novel, McInerney sold its first chapter, “It’s Six A.M. Bright Lights, Big City was adapted into a film starring 1980s television star Michael J.

Bright lights big city by jay mcinerney