Bright Lights, Big City (1984)
Young Adult Novel Analysis
Written by DJ Hadoken
Through the narrator of Jay McInerney’s 1984 novel, Bright Lights, Big City, we are presented the aftermath of a love story that has ended bitterly. The narrator’s heartbreak blinds him to every other aspect of his life. Although the process is slow, his fixation on his suffering and the flaws created by it, in the end, ultimately lead to rebirth and salvation.
His most outward flaw is his dependency on drugs. From the onset of the story, we are introduced to this addiction. The playful nickname given to these drugs alludes to the severity of his problems. “Your brain at this moment is composed of brigades of tiny Bolivian soldiers... they need the Bolivian Marching Powder” (2).
Through this ironic humor we are introduced to a narrator who appears to have no hope of escape from his problems. “Here you go again. All messed up and no place to go” (10).
A major flaw that the narrator struggles with is that, he either does not know how, or is not willing to deal with his problem. His wife Amanda has suddenly left him and has hired a lawyer who presents him with only brief questions about the settlement and no real help. “The easiest thing... would be for you to sue his [the lawyer] client for sexual abandonment” (77).
The narrator (though, for the sake of love it is understandable that he did not desire to fight back) could have at the least found his own lawyer to consult with. Having only an insensitive, chauvinistic party boy as his closest thing to a best friend and being too ashamed to tell his family what happened, he chose to escape to late-night parties and drugs instead of seeking the professional help he would need.
The narrator loses his identity when Amanda leaves him. He was once an aspiring writer, his marriage with Amanda marking the beginning of a great and promising future. “...You seemed to be arriving at the premiere of the movie which was to be your life” (151).
But after Amanda leaves him, he sees himself as having no identity. “Sometimes you feel like the only man in the city without group affiliation” (57). He loses priority when she leaves him. Instead of focusing on advancing his career and overcoming his problem, he allows it to engulf and swallow his way of thinking. It is as if he is traveling through a dark tunnel and cannot notice anything around him.
During his travel through this tunnel, he loses his job, where we are reminded again of the narrator’s lack of ability to find a solution. He remains focused on the origin of the downward spiral his life has fallen into; he takes his next loss as merely another step towards oblivion. “...You could never truly explain how this fiasco came about” (101).
He does not try to save his career; he does not try to fight even in lieu of his coworkers’ encouragement. “‘This could have happened to any of us,’ Megan says” (100). Through this disconnection we see that he is a shallow person who maintains distant relationships. He makes no effort to bid farewell to his former colleagues. He does not try to speak of what he needs, he only thinks to himself, “...the only shoes we can ever wear are our own,” (101) and allows his misery to continue.
There proves to be a light in the tunnel he is in, however. Megan, presented as the most stable character in the novel, acts as a mother figure for the narrator. She supports him and does not cease to extend a helping hand. Although, his desire for a means of escape rather than a solution remains ever present. “You think of islands, palm trees, food-gathering. Escape.” (79).
He furthers his quest when he tries to find escape with Megan sexually. Though, she stops and guides him, saying, “That’s not what you want,” (143) as they are in her apartment. After this event, we are able to observe how the narrator’s flaws finally set him on a path to rebirth.
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Another ray of light comes in the form of Vicky. She is revealed as the narrator’s salvation early in the novel, at the end of their date. She gives him attention, both emotionally and physically; an experience that he has not had in a long time. “You are thinking that Clara Tillinghast can go to hell because tonight you are happy” (98).
His final encounter with Amanda causes him to break down; after recovering, he reaches for Vicky. She saves him because she does not hang the phone up. She is willing to listen and he is finally willing to talk. She is his exit from the tunnel.
Through drugs, degradation and despair, the narrator is reborn. Megan lends him a boost and Vicky grasps him by the hands and helps him up. In the novel we witness the aftermath of one love story and the beginning of a new one.
“You will have to go slowly. You will have to learn everything all over again” (182). These last lines of the novel show us that much like a phoenix, the narrator has fallen and risen from the ashes.
Works Cited
McInerney, Jay. Bright Lights, Big City. Vintage, 1984.
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