Story of My Life »

The author of seven novels and two collections of essays on wine, Jay McInerney is a regular contributor to New York, The New York Times Book Review, The Independent and Corriere della Sera. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy and Granta. In 2006, Time cited his 1984 debut, Bright Lights, Big City, as one of nine generation-defining novels of the twentieth century. He was the recipient of the 2006 James Beard Foundation’s M.F.K.

In his breathlessly paced new novel Jay McInerney revisits the nocturnal New York of Bright Lights, Big City. Alison Poole, twenty going on 40,000, is a budding actress already fatally well versed in hopping the clubs, shopping Chanel falling in and out of, lust, and abusing other people's credit cards. As Alison races toward emotional breakdown, McInerney gives us a hilarious yet oddly touching portrait of a postmodern Holly Golightly coming to terms with a world in which everything is permitted and nothing really matters.