Brightness Falls

Brightness Falls is a great American novel, which owes a great deal to F. Scott Fitzgerald and his Gatsby. At times, it seems as if McInerney wants to re-tell the Gatsby tale on Wall Street during the Crash of '87. McInerney's Nick Carraway is, after all, Crash Galloway. However, the meaning of this novel transcends this decade and its hideous "greed is good" mantra: it's not simply a "period piece." The story is about the mad pursuit of wealth, the shallowness of the great Faustian trade and the price paid in unintended consequences. The story replays time after time and has done so since Helen of Troy and it always will stand as a poignant, cyclical, cautionary tale about those with unfettered ambition blindly seeking wealth and power. For all the apparent allure and trappings of wealth in New York high society and in big business, Russell Galloway is engaged in a zero-sum game. The writing in this novel is exquisite: I know this is absolute heresy but, at times, McInerney out-Fitzgeralds Fitzgerald. The main characters are round, full, human, distinctive and complex: I found myself intrigued by all of them. The dialogue is witty, funny, honest, real and each character spoke with a distinctive voice. The story-line was unexpected, credible and ambitious in its scale. The final chapter is one of the great closes among 20th century, literary novels. Having worked for global corporations during this time, I was deeply impressed with how well McInerney captured the essence of the era and then rendered his depiction timeless. I really can't say enough about this truly great American novel as the greed, arrogance and quotidian materialism of the late '80s just keeps on re-playing in the 90's of the day trader and in this decade as hedge funds are about to free-fall below the zero-line in their forthcoming decadent, dizzying downside. I was moved by the closing allusions to redemption in this prophetic novel and the optimism inherent in the premise that salvation can be experienced even after epic catastrophe and transcend it through the beauty of love and forgiveness -- even as brightness falls from the air.

Set just before the 1987 stock market crash and taking its title from a macabre 17th century poem about the unavoidable ruination of youth, beauty, ambition and life itself, Jay Mcinerney's finest novel is the tale of a twenty-something married couple, Russell and Corrine, who live in New York City at the height of '80's excess and glamour. The man whose life forms the basis of this novel, Russell, is an aspiring writer who has shelved his ambitions and taken up work as a publisher, editing and pushing through other peoples' books. He is unhappy at his job, slightly bored in his marriage, and when the chance comes up to advance himself and become part-owner of a faltering publishing house, he seizes it....exactly days before the ruination the market collapse brings on. This is a novel of expertly appreciated manners and mores in Reagan's New York, augmented by a fabulously-sketched cast of characters, all moved along at a brisk pace by the power of Mcinerney writing in top form. Thus far this is the author's best novel and probably the greatest of all examinations of life among the upwardly-mobile in 1980's Manhattan.

I recall reading "Story of my life" and loving it, and this was McInerney follow-up book. No doubt about it - a far more ambitious project. Deeper characters, richer settings, more complex and intrincate story development and vocabulary. And I do not think McInerney got near enough literary credit for his switcharoo, for I think ths to be an admirable book. It still packs in the witticisms that were expected in a follow-up to a flippant tour de force such as Story of my Life, yet there is also far more depth to everything. And, again, I was a captive of McInerney's prose. Though not as easy to read, it is a still a delight. McInerney's writing is elegant and alive. The characters are all flawed and quite real, and the occasional stereotype allows the reader to feel somewhat smart in a book that otherwise woud possibly be too erudite and Oscar-Wildish for our century. In Story of my Life, McInerney was a musician that solo'd in a jazz bar and simply had fun. In Brightness Falls, he puts on the tux and directs a complete orchestra through a far more complex piece. He does an admirabe job. As far as I am concerned, Story of My Life and Brightness Falls represent his best 2 books to this day.

I read McInerney for one reason--his comical observation of the human condition. This book had it's comical moments but above all, it chronicals an era. It captures the the 1980's in an acutely sharp time lapse photograph. This book is unique by classical dramatic definitions--it is a tragedy, a history, and a marginal comdedy. A historical book of the same stature of any of the classical Greek Histories, but this isn't Greece Before Christ--It's 1980's, Metropolitan America. Procure this book. Read this book. Cherish it as I have, and put it on your shelf as a memoir of a time and place.

I read McInerney's early success Bright Lights, Big City nine years ago and was so impressed that I bought each subsequent book on sight. Disappointingly, the next two I read got increasingly trivial and depressing. Until BRIGHTNESS FALLS. I thought the title was an interesting comment on the success of his first novel and the downfall of his career since then. However, I was not prepared for the stylistic maastery and raw emotion that were to fill the over-400 pages I committed myself to read. It was an adventure to pick up the book each night, as new characters continued to emerge throughout. Some characters had a decided influence on the plot of the book, while others served to embellish the feelings and situations of a given character. Each chapter focusses on a new aspect of the story, though without seeming contrived to rotate through them all. In fact, this approach serves to embed the reader further in the feeling that the lives of the main characters are irreversibly entwined with the lives of all those they encounter. Though it may be trite to say that the book made me cry, it is true. The pure love and pain expressed in its final pages had me sobbing in my airline seat as I read the closing words, much to the embarrassment of the passengers around me. If you liked Bright Lights, Big City and have been waiting for the next great Jay McInerney book, this is it. Wait no longer.