Bright, Precious Days (McInerney)

Bright, Precious Days
Jay McInerney, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101948002


Summary
A sexy, vibrant, cross-generational New York story—a literary and commercial read of the highest order.

Russell and Corrine Calloway seem to be living the New York dream: book parties one night and high-society charity events the next; jobs they care about (and actually enjoy); twin children, a boy and a girl whose birth was truly miraculous; a loft in TriBeCa and summers in the Hamptons.

But all of this comes at a high cost. Russell, an independent publisher, has cultural clout but minimal cash; as he navigates an industry that requires, beyond astute literary taste, constant financial improvisation, he encounters an audacious, expensive and potentially ruinous opportunity.

Meanwhile, instead of seeking personal profit in this incredibly wealthy city, Corrine is devoted to feeding its hungry poor, and they soon discover they're being priced out of their now fashionable neighborhood.
    
Then Corrine's world is turned upside down when the man with whom she'd had an ill-fated affair in the wake of 9/11 suddenly reappears. As the novel unfolds across a period of stupendous change—including Obama's historic election and the global economic collapse he inherited—the Calloways will find themselves and their marriage tested more severely than they ever could have anticipated. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—January 13, 1955
• Where—Hartford, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Williams College; M.A. Syracuse University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York


John Barrett "Jay" McInerney, Jr., is an American novelist, whose 1984 debut novel Bright Lights, Big City, placed him in the literary spotlight as a young author to watch. Since then, McInerney has published numerous other novels, two short story collections, and three collections of essays on wine.

McInerney was born in 1955 in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Marilyn Jean (Murphy) and John Barrett McInerney, Sr., a corporate executive. He graduated from Williams College in 1976 and earned an M.A. in English Writing from Syracuse University, where he studied with Raymond Carver.

After working as a fact-checker at The New Yorker, McInerney achieved fame in 1984 with his first published novel, Bright Lights, Big City, a depiction of New York City's cocaine culture. The novel, whose title is from a 1961 Jimmy Reed blues song, was thought unique for its second-person narrative. After its release, McInerney was heralded, along with Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz, as one of the new faces of literature: young, iconoclastic and fresh. A 1987 Village Voice article dubbed the trio—McInerney, Easton, and Janowitz—the Literary Brat Pack (the group was sometimes expanded to include Donna Tartt and Susan Minot.)

Fiction
1984 - Bright Lights, Big City
1985 - Ransom
1988 - Story of My Life
1992 - Brightness Falls
1997 - The Last of the Savages
1998 - Model Behavior
2006 - The Good Life
2009 - How It Ended (short story collection)
2009 - The Last Bachelor (short story collection)
2016 - Bright, Precious Days

McInerney also wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film version of Bright Lights, Big City and co-wrote the screenplay for the television film Gia, which starred Angelina Jolie. He has been a wine columnist for both House & Garden and The Wall Street Journal, and his essays on wine have been collected in Bacchus & Me (2000), A Hedonist in the Cellar (2006), and Juice (2012).

Trading places
Bret Easton Ellis used McInerney's character Alison Poole, from Story of My Life, in two of his novels—American Psycho and Glamorama. Poole's character, which McInerney has described as "cocaine addled" and "sexually voracious," was based upon a former girlfriend, Rielle Hunter, then known as Lisa Druck. Story of My Life offers a prescient glimpse into the notorious horse murders scandal, which became known only in 1992, when Sports Illustrated published a confession from the man who had murdered Lisa Druck's horse at the request of her father, who wanted to claim the insurance.

McInerney also has a cameo role in Ellis's Lunar Park, attending the Halloween party Bret hosts at his house. Apparently, however, McInerney was displeased with how he was portrayed in the novel.

Personal
Ellis has been married four times. His first wife was fashion model Linda Rossiter. His second wife was writer Merry Reymond. For four years he lived with fashion model Marla Hanson. His third marriage to Helen Bransford, with whom he had fraternal twin children, John Barrett McInerney III and Maisie Bransford McInerney, lasted nine years. In 2006, he married Anne Hearst. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/17/2016.)

Book Reviews
McInerney's multivolume, not-so-distant historical fiction can't help recalling John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom books or Philip Roth's second Zuckerman trilogy...the Calloway books share strengths with all those works, as well as an underlying generosity of spirit that is McInerney's own. The moral arc of his universe bends toward forgiveness.... But compassion and empathy don't dull a wicked sense of humor.... What [McInerney] has given us, after three books and across nearly 1,000 pages, is a portrait of a marriage in full, its strengths and weaknesses, its betrayals and compromises as vivid as you'll find in any medium. If a few of the plot threads tie up a bit too neatly, Russell and Corrine crawl their way to the final pages believably chastened, credibly wiser, still conflicted, like all of us. Endurance, in the end, is McInerney's theme, for both marriage and city. Battered, bruised, we're still here, catching our breaths, holding on.
Bruce Handy - New York Times Book Review


McInerney has long been a distinctly New York novelist, but Bright, Precious Days looks downright myopic in its focus on the rarefied concerns of a certain class of New Yorkers, their aspirations, their prep schools, their struggles to attend $1,000-a-plate charity banquets.... In one of the story’s most tragic—and apparently unironic—moments, Russell laments that he can’t even buy a $6 million house. (This humiliation adds "to his sense that the world as he knew it was crumbling around him.").... Still, as a social satirist, McInerney can be so spot-on that you want to call your housekeeper upstairs and read her some of the funny bits.... But despite the dazzlingly smart style of McInerney’s prose, there’s a wavering tone in this novel, a sense that the author is still lusting after the very things he’s mocking.
Ron Charles - Washington Post


Replete with the trappings that privileged New Yorkers, in particular, would expect and receive with self-satisfied smirks, it’s all book parties, gallery openings, tasting menus, prime real estate and summers in the Hamptons with a heavy pour of oenology.... It’s familiar territory for McInerney (in real and imagined life), a high priest of Brat Pack lit, whose Bright Lights, Big City debut in 1984 secured his place as a voice of his generation. And McInerney certainly hasn’t lost his impressive ability to tell a story, though the novel does get a little doughy around the middle. But despite his talent, the nagging feeling persists throughout that...deep down most of these characters are narcissistic, empty vessels. And, cultural sightseeing aside, that means we have no real reason to care.
James Endrst - USA Today


[The] brittle and evanescent lives of New York’s elite.... A highfalutin beach read, Mr. McInerney’s first novel in 10 years tracks Russell and Corrine Calloway as they struggle with the demands of family and business. He’s an independent publisher; she’s a screenwriter manque. They have two young children. They have affairs.... There’s rich material, but too often, Mr. McInerney defaults to style. Yet he does write fluidly and rhythmically, piquing our curiosity with his inside dope.
Carolo Wolff - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


[A] portrait of middle-aged malaise.... hat an author famous for slick, stylish evocation of drug-addled youth has evolved into a restrained, almost sombre chronicler of professional-class ennui may seem surprising. "Bright, Precious Days" is a far cry from "Bright Lights, Big City," the novel that made McInerney an instant celebrity in 1984, at the age of twenty-nine. But, underneath the glamour and flash of his subject matter, he has always been a more committed psychological novelist than his reputation suggests.
The New Yorker


McInerney’s tale is an astute examination of the ebbs and flows of a marriage in tumultuous times—coming to terms with unfinished relationships, the struggle to stay sane during chaotic events, and the strength to rebuild in a city ravaged by drugs, terrorism, and economic depression.
Publishers Weekly


In this powerful portrait of a marriage and a city in the shadow of the looming subprime mortgage crisis, McInerney observes the passage of life’s seasons with aching and indelible clarity.
Booklist


After a long, draggy midsection, the end of this novel kicks into high gear, with a torrent of personal crises, the financial crash, and the Obama election....Whether you love him or hate him, this novel is just what you're expecting from McInerney. So he must be doing it on purpose.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Describe the early courtship of Russell and Corrine Calloway. How would you characterize their relationship? How do their personalities shift or change over the course of the novel? What aspect of their marriage is strongest?

2. Marital fidelity, or lack thereof, is central to the plotting in Bright, Precious Days. As the number of affairs mounted throughout the book, how did they shape or complicate your understanding of each character? Which liaison surprised you the most? Consider the letter that Jeff wrote to Corrine, in which courtly love is explored. What does McInerney seem to suggest about the functionality of monogamy?

3. Jeff is introduced to the reader, strikingly, in the present tense. How is his presence felt throughout the book? How would you describe him, based on Russell’s account? Corrine’s? What did his personal letters reveal?

4. Describe the editorial relationship that Russell has with his authors. What is his main objective as an editor? Discuss the idea of ownership in relation to literature that has been touched by an editor’s pen. What does Jack’s letter to Russell imply about Russell’s editorial style?

5. Discuss how New York City functions as a character in Bright, Precious Days. What assertions can be made about New York pre- and post-9/11? What is "authentic" New York? How do Russell’s ideas about what it means to be a New Yorker frustrate Corrine?

6. The scene in which Hilary reveals that she is the biological mother of Russell and Corrine’s children sends shock waves that emanate throughout the novel. What scares Corrine most about her children knowing this information? How would you describe her as a parent?

7. Discuss the role of food and consumption in Bright, Precious Days. How is Russell’s interest in food and culinary culture described over the course of the novel? Why does their daughter’s interest in cooking alarm Corrine? How does class factor into body image concerns in their social circle?

8. Compare the dinner party in chapter 31 with the dinner party where Jack first becomes acquainted with the Calloways. How has his perspective about the Calloway family changed during this time? How has his understanding of New York and its literary scene shifted?

9. Discuss Corrine and Russell’s TriBeCa living situation. Why is Russell so adamant about buying property? What appeals to Corrine about Harlem? How does their struggle to find an affordable neighborhood reflect the tides of gentrification inherent in the rise of urban populaces?

10. Issues of class consciousness run throughout Bright, Precious Days. How do anxieties about money and status plague Corrine and Russell’s relationship? With whom is Corrine most comfortable discussing money? How does the crash of 2008 affect the couple’s social circle?

11. Describe Corrine’s relationship with Luke. What attracted her to Luke initially? How does his personality differ from her husband’s? Were you surprised by her decision to remain with Russell?

12. How does the discovery of Corrine’s affair affect their children? When is Corrine’s guilt about it most apparent? How does her apology following the affair differ from Russell’s behavior after his dalliances?

13. Compare the lives of Jeff and Jack. What parallels can you draw about their ascensions to literary stardom? Their tragic deaths? How did Russell’s editorial input shape their success?

14. As Bright, Precious Days unfolds, instances of deception are untangled and revealed. Who is the most honest character? Which character’s secret was most surprising to you?

15. How do Russell’s ideas about Art and Love versus Power and Money echo throughout Bright, Precious Days? What do they assert about the relationship between art and commerce? How do they reflect the changing nature of New York City? Of Russell’s own ambitions?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

top of page (summary)