REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS HAPPILY PAST:

Bright Lights, Lost City (Jay McInerney, Entertainment Weekly)

When I first arrived in New York in the closing weeks of 1979 with the grandiose notion of writing the great American novel, conventional wisdom suggested that I was about 20 years too late — that the city and the novel were both on their last legs. New York had nearly gone bankrupt a couple of years before and it showed. The city looked like hell, especially around the edges — the graffiti-ridden, garbage-strewn neighborhoods where marginally employed seekers like myself were able to find affordable shelter, neighborhoods where muggings and break-ins were rites of passage, thanks to the heroin epidemic. The recently completed Twin Towers were half empty and the subway system was barely functional. Eventually, if you were lucky, a train would shudder into the station, riddled with graffiti like some great wounded beast enervated by parasites. Catching the train was only half the battle. The other half was surviving the ride between your crummy neighborhood and the offices of a publishing house in midtown, where you had a lunch appointment with your old college friend, with your life and your wallet intact. I was 24 years old and I loved it all.

Mr. McInerney came as close as anybody to writing the Great American Novel.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 15, 2004 4:00 PM