I’m continuing on from last week’s foray into Jay McInerney’s short stories, I’m still working through How It Ended: New and Collected Stories and in a burst of insomniac desperation reading, came across “Story of My Life.” Written in 1987, it is the stream of conscious thoughts of Alison Poole, an aspiring drama student whose father hasn’t paid her monthly tuition fee. Eagle-eyed readers among you (or those with instant access to wikipedia and the like) may recognize Alison as quite a figure of late 80s and early 90s American Literature. Inspired by McInerney’s ex-girlfriend and more recently at the centre of an extramarital affair turned political scandal with former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, Rielle Hunter, Alison Poole not only features in this short story, but was expanded upon in McInerney’s novel Story of My Life. She also appeared as an almost victim of Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho and again in Ellis’ Glamorama. (You can read more about Hunter’s presence in literature as Alison Poole here.)
This is nineteen eighty whatever.
It’s almost difficult to see what makes Alison Poole such an enduring character for these writers, but in “Story of My Life” McInerney creates her as, yes, a vapid spoilt little rich girl coke fiend but she’s not entirely detestable. Written entirely in the much maligned valley girl vernacular, peppered with lots of likes and self-aware rhetorical questions, Poole appears to be a wickedly clever, if a little lost, young woman. She’s manipulative, spiteful and cruel but … who enjoys only reading about well behaved women? Exactly.
Skip Pendleton is this jerk I was in lust with for about three minutes. He hasn’t called me in like three weeks, which is fine, okay, I can deal with that, but suddenly I’m like a baseball card he trades with his friends? Give me a break. So I go to this guy, what makes you think I’d want to go out with you, I don’t even know you, and he goes Skip told me about you. Right. So I’m like, what did he tell you, and he goes Skip said you were hot. I say great, I’m totally honored that the great Skip Pendleton thinks I’m hot. I’m just a jalapeño pepper waiting for some strange burrito, honey. I mean really.
Alison is stressing out because her father, refusing to pay a full yearly tuition because of her tendency to not stick with things, has missed the monthly tuition payment for her drama school classes. After receiving phone calls from eager young men being directed her way from an ex-lover, Skip Pendleton, and inspired by her friend Didi’s possible pregnancy troubles, Alison tells Skip that she is pregnant with his child and requires money for the abortion. Her father eventually gets in contact with her, having parted ways with another young lover, and promises to send her the tuition money. Alison realizes that she is actually pregnant and will have to use her excess money to terminate it. To celebrate, Alison and friends enjoy a drug-fuelled binge which sees her hospitalized and reminiscing about her prized horse which was poisoned to death when she was younger. She remembers her father coming into her room (there is a heavy suggestion of abuse here, but it isn’t expanded upon in the short story) and admitting that he had the horse poisoned in order to claim the insurance money. When confronted, her father denies any knowledge of it and Alison Poole wonders how much of her life is just a dream.
So, okay, maybe I dreamed it. I was in bed, after all, and he woke me up. Not for the first time. But right now, with these tranqs they’ve got me on, I feel like I’m sleepwalking anyway and can almost believe it never really happened. Maybe I dreamed a lot of stuff. Stuff I thought happened in my life. Stuff I thought I did. Stuff that was done to me. Wouldn’t that be great? I’d love to think that ninety percent of it was just dreaming.
It’s not exactly life affirming literature. Alison’s concerns are mainly shallow and petty, but as a character she has such a strong and distinctive voice that is difficult to ignore. The slang may grate on the nerves of some, but McInerney uses it so well and so accurately that it makes Alison stand out as a character. Though her plight may be seen as sad, or sick, or the epitome of superficial youth, reading her story in her own voice allows the reader more sympathy toward her. I’m strongly inclined to order the novel, and having just reread McInerney’s introduction to this collection I’ve discovered that another story “Penelope on the Pond” features an older Alison.
(It appears this may be an appropriate time to read the Alison Poole stories, as John Edwards just last week admitted that he is the father of Hunter’s illegitimate daughter, after having denied it for almost two years. This story is as almost as interesting as the exploits of the fictional Alison Poole.)
