Tag Archives: Jay McInerney

Book Loot: Week Ending May 2nd, 2010

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A warning to all, especially those on self-imposed book buying bans, this post features an obscene amount of books. First, some ebay packages arrived. Then I found out one of my favourite secondhand bookstores in the city was going out of business and selling all their books for $1. Yes, $1. I set myself a modest limit of $20 and let loose, coming out with only (cough, only? My shoulder and hands disagree) 19 books. The day after the sale ended, my sister happened to be wandering by and they were chucking books into a dumpster; she scored some really good stuff too.

And then, yes, that’s just my loot from during the week, there was Clunes. I came well under budget, spending much less than I thought I would. It was a great day, lovely surrounds and buildings, a good vibe, a few friendly dogs and lots of books.  Here’s my haul:

And, a few interesting articles from the week:

Short Story Soiree: Story of My Life by Jay McInerney (1987)

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How It Ended: New and Collected Stories by Jay McInerney (2009)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.)

Short Story Soiree: Third Party by Jay McInerney (1999)

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How It Ended: New and Collected Stories by Jay McInerney (2009)I’m not as far into Jay McInerney’s short story collection How It Ended: New and Collected Stories as I would usually be by this time of the week. However, I think that taking it slow with McInerney is ideal because, at least eight stories into it, many of the stories cover very similar territory. The stories are short, sharp observations of the rich, usually involving copious amounts of substance abuse. From what I know of Bright Lights, Big City, this plutography seems to be his stock in trade. Fittingly enough, Jay McInerney made a cameo appearance in the second series of Gossip Girl. This week’s Soiree is going to be spending a little time with “Third Party”, a story set in one night in Paris.

Paris, the city of lights, the city of romance and love. For Alex, Paris is where he retreats to lament his most recent failed relationship with a woman named Lydia, and to take up smoking, more for the image he wishes to project rather than any inherent desire for tobacco:

Alex started smoking again whenever he lost a woman. When he fell in love again, he would quit. And when love died, he’d light up again. Partly it was a physical reaction to stress; partly metaphorical–the substitution of one addiction for another. And no small part of this reflex was mythological–indulging a romantic image of himself as a lone figure standing on a bridge in a foreign city, cigarette cupped in his hand, his leather jacket open to the elements.

As he sits down for dinner at a hotel, a young attractive couple intrude on his table and join him as if that is what they were there for. Alex thinks they have mistaken him for someone else, but goes along with them anyway. Frédéric and Tasha discuss New York and their hatred of Paris, drinking and getting to know each other through the false pretence. Alex becomes increasingly intrigued by the attractive, provocative Tasha who casually reveals that she and Frédéric are ex-lovers. The threesome decide to hit the Parisian nightclubs together afterwards, Tasha and Alex becoming more and more physically intimate.

Alex hadn’t been clubbing in several years. After he and Lydia moved in together, the clubs lost their appeal. Now he felt the return of the old thrill, the anticipation of the hunt–the sense that the night held secrets bound to be unveiled before it was over.

After Frédéric has an argument with a bartender, he and Tasha decide to leave, leaving Alex alone. He walks out onto the street, only to meet up with the pair again. They drive around and Alex further considers the loss of Lydia and gets sexually entangled with Tasha on the backseat. The previous suggestion of violence – Tasha biting Alex’s tongue until it bleeds, Alex ripping the wound open – builds up to the climax: Frédéric crashes the car and in the resulting wreckage Alex confronts them about who they think he is, only be verbally eviscerated by Frédéric. Alex gets carried away with this vision of himself through others eyes, from the cigarettes to going along with the mysterious Tasha and Frédéric. He is all illusion and pretence and doesn’t really have much of substance. The tension builds and is released in a cataclysm of violence and decimates Alex’s relentless image of self-importance.

In a fury, Alex kicked him in the ribs, “Who the hell do you think I am?”
Frédéric smiled and looked up at him. “You’re just a guy,” he said. “You’re nobody.”

It may not be mindblowingly amazing writing, but it features the common tropes of McInerney’s stories so far: sex, drugs, rich people with no real concept of anything beyond themselves. And, I kind of like it, because most of these characters are so shallow, their stories are so neatly wrapped up within a few pages. I’m looking forward to reading the rest.