You and Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney




You are not the type of reader to read Bright Lights, Big City.

You're better than that. You have dignity. You have self respect.

First printing of the first book that launched Vintage Contemporaries in 1984

You're way too good to read Bright Lights, Big City, in fact, a book whose plot is "Snort Snort" and "Wham! bam! thank you Skank!"  You did plenty of clubbing in the 1980s.  You got around, oh yeah!  You called in sick the next day after nights of decadence to your crummy fact-checking gig at the New Yorker or whatever elitist rag it was that once employed you, long before you were somebody important, when you were hungover and maybe still wasted at six in the morning, just exiting the bar, still looking to get your freak on, while colleagues in suits stormed the sidewalks in the morning rush to work, lots of times. 

You did that a lot, and that's the plot (voila!) of Bright Lights, Big City, so why waste any more time reading it?  Because you're nostalgic?  Because you're sentimental?  Because you miss the 1980s?  You are a loser then, aren't you?  You already snorted tons of cocaine, didn't you?!  You know you did.  Big deal.  You've been there done that.  And you did other things too, didn't you?  You did boys and girls, that is, searching out your sexual identity, exploring your natural lascivious inclinations and proclivities.  Are you straight or are you gay or maybe bi?  Experimenting.

Or was that Less Than Zero you were reading?  You should be reading Less Than Zero, a better book by far, (and one that's not written in the gimmicky nor annoying constant second person) but you really need to stay on topic and keep on not reading Bright Lights, Big City, the book that made Jay McInerney (in)famous.  Don't read it.  Don't.  You're too smart to read that shit.  Why don't you break out some Culture Club records if you're going to read Bright Lights, Big City, while you're at it, you dumb retro dweeb?!  Or Wang Chung or Kajagoogoo?  Now there's some lasting music to go with your lasting, "classy" literature.

If you still think you are the kind of reader to read a book like Bright Lights, Big City, then ... fuck you!  You should be used to hearing that too since there's already lots of "fucks" and lots of "yous" in Bright Lights, Big City, isn't there?!  Nothing but "yous"!  It's all about you you you, isn't it?  And you're just not very interesting anymore, are you?  Because you're old, dated, cliche-ridden, and superficial just like you always were.  You're a has been:  Bright Lights, Big City.  That's you, Sucker.  You always did suck but your PR people at the publishing company ran a damn good marketing campaign didn't they, the ingrates.  And your cocaine was low grade anyway the whole time too.  Cut with corn starch or some alleged cancer causing sugar substitute like saccharine.  Cheap Tijuana shit, yo.

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