From 2009:
"How it Ended: New and
Collected Short Stories" by Jay McInerney.
BY
ADAM PARKER
The
Post and Courier
In the Feb. 2006 issue of
Vanity Fair, Jay McInerney’s answers to the monthly “Proust Questionnaire”
were published in the magazine’s back pages. The last question was, “How would
you like to die?”
McInerney’s answer is a good
encapsulation of the strivings and failures of the fictional characters that
occupy his novels and short stories: “In bed with my true love after a night
on the town,” he wrote.
The goal is sometimes achieved
but rarely satisfying for these protagonists who die a thousand deaths, these
men and women awash in money and drugs, ever pursuing their bliss down blind
alleys, ever disappointed by the way things turn out.
McInerney has a clear
conception of the short story form (his mentors were Raymond Carver and Tobias
Wolff), and he excels at constructing taught, interesting scenarios that
succeed in revealing both the nature of his characters and the nature of our
times. The best of them are the product of a relaxed pen, such as “The
Waiter,” an intriguing exploration of class distinctions and
attitudes.
These are carved, not molded
stories, the work of someone expert in the objective examination of a way of
life. The characters lead chilly lifestyles where love is elusive, drugs
pervasive and materialism rampant. In McInerney’s deregulated world,
superficiality reigns. You remember his 1984 debut novel, “Bright Lights Big
City,” in which he writes in the second person, as if the reader were the
yuppie cokehead protagonist stuck in the fast-lane? If not, the first story in
the new collection — “It’s Six A.M. Do You Know Where You Are?” — is a recap
of the decade that witnessed a monumental redistribution of wealth, should
your memory require refreshing.
“How it Ended” introduces us to
some globetrotters, drug dealers, attorneys, models and debutantes, about whom
McInerney writes as though he were determined to complete an exhaustive study
of this economic and social class. It is quite an achievement that he can
describe these nouveau riche and their mundane routines with flare,
insight and such finely assembled words.
Sometimes the writer’s effort
is detectable, as if the gears and levers, usually so invisible, suddenly
begin to squeak. Take the opening of “Getting in Touch with Lonnie.” The
attention with which he strung these words together is apparent: “Jared let
his parched eyes slide across the soothing green lawns, watching the
impeccable houses sail past the cab window.” Too much Georges Pompidou Center,
not enough Louvre.
Sometimes he pushes his luck,
as when he asks the reader to suspend belief and, for example, accept that a
highly educated, once-promising young man with a drug problem should become a
street pimp, then emerge from the seedy depths of New York City’s pre-hip
meatpacking district to settle into a quiet suburban life. It’s a bit trying.
And there are moments when he
doesn’t try hard enough, as in this story-ending epiphany: “Somehow it always
ended up like this — solo at the edge of dawn. The stage was dark, the
audience gone home. She tried to picture a lifetime of Christmases with
Jeffrey and couldn’t. It wasn’t his fault. It was her.” And so on.
It’s most fun to read about the
New York types when they’re somewhere else. “The Debutante’s Return” features
Faye Teasdale, daughter of a wealthy Southern family who’s escaped to reinvent
herself (as a party girl) in New York City, only to return to Nashville after
her mother’s latest stroke and, matured, settle down for good.
Or “Third Party,” in which a
man decides to go to Paris after a breakup (because “his grief was more
poignant and picturesque there”) and falls in with a nihilistic couple — all
fashion, no soul — to his great peril.
In his short stories, McInerney
is a master at entwining his themes of greed, loss, promiscuity and longing.
The result is the dull roar of an impotent rage. And what’s so interesting is
the hum of awareness — of the author and of his characters — which suggests
something redeemable, which in turn keeps us reading. It’s a
little like the rejected girlfriend who, refusing to give up, thinks, “Oh I
know I can save him from himself, if he’d only give me a chance.” The
characters are not unaware of their selfishness and detachment; they are not
oblivious to their oblivion.
Incidentally, the Proust
Questionnaire acquired its name when Marcel Proust submitted answers to a set
of quirky questions seemingly designed to elicit irony, self-reflection,
sarcasm and wit. Proust’s response to the question, “How would you like to
die?”
“Improved,” he wrote, “and
loved.” It was an uncanny reference to the past (his lived life) and future
(his immortal renown). How fitting.
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