John Barrett " Jay" McInerney Jr. (; born January 13, 1955) is an American novelist, screenwriter, editor, and columnist. A slideshow of the best dressed authors, Vanity Fair His novels include Bright Lights, Big City, Ransom, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls, and The Last of the Savages. He edited The Penguin Book of New American Voices, wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film adaptation of Bright Lights, Big City, and co-wrote the screenplay for the television film Gia, which starred Angelina Jolie. He was the wine columnist for House & Garden magazine, and his essays on wine have been collected in Bacchus & Me (2000) and A Hedonist in the Cellar (2006). His most recent novel is titled Bright, Precious Days, published in 2016. From April 2010 he was a wine columnist for The Wall Street Journal. In 2009, he published a book of short stories which spanned his entire career, titled How It Ended, which was named one of the 10 best books of the year by Janet Maslin of The New York Times.
After the success of Bright Lights, Big City, publishers started looking for similar works about young people in urban settings. Ellis's Less than Zero, published in 1985, was promoted as following McInerney's example. McInerney, Ellis and Janowitz were based in New York City and their lives there were the subject of heavy media coverage.
Ellis used McInerney's character, Alison Poole ( Story of My Life), in his novels American Psycho and Glamorama. McInerney revealed that the character of Alison Poole is based upon his former girlfriend, Rielle Hunter, then known as Lisa Druck. He described the character as "cocaine addled," and "sexually voracious" but also treated her with some sympathy. McInerney's roman à clef opened a prescient glimpse into the notorious horse murders scandal, which did not become known to the public until 1992, when Sports Illustrated magazine published a confession from the man who had murdered Lisa Druck's horse at her father's behest, in order to claim the insurance on its life.
McInerney also has a cameo role in Ellis's Lunar Park, attending the Halloween party Bret hosts at his house. It was later revealed that McInerney was not pleased with his representation in the novel.
Throughout his career, McInerney has struggled against the image of himself as both the author and protagonist of Bright Lights, Big City. In 2009, he said in an interview, "Obviously, I'm no longer a 25-year-old bon vivant, but that gave me what I always wanted: the opportunity to be a full-time writer. It hasn't been entirely fair to my other books, and I've had to deal with a lot of idiocy on the part of the critics and the cultural commentators." He appeared at Williams College as the commencement speaker for the Class of 2010.
"The Queen and I" | 1996 | ||
Con doctor | |||
"Everything is lost" | 2009 | ||
"In the North-West Frontier Province" | |||
"Invisible fences" | |||
"The Madonna of turkey season" | |||
"My public service" | |||
"Smoke" | |||
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