Jay McInerney
Jay McInerney
John Barrett "Jay" McInerney, Jr.is an American novelist. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City, Ransom, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls, and The Last of the Savages. He edited The Penguin Book of New American Voices, wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film adaptation of Bright Lights, Big City, and co-wrote the screenplay for the television film Gia, which starred Angelina Jolie. He was the wine columnist for House & Garden magazine, and his essays on wine have been...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth13 January 1955
CityHartford, CT
CountryUnited States of America
I've been interested in writing and storytelling since I learned to read, but it wasn't until I read Dylan Thomas, when I was 14, that I became interested in language itself, and saw it as more than a transparent medium for a story.
You know, Greenwich Village was the traditional bohemia of New York. I wish I could say that was entirely true now. It's, uh... changed. It's now got, God help us, investment bankers and journalists, but it's still a very beautiful part of New York.
I feel that there's a lot of would-be guardians of the culture who think that high-minded literary purpose and the life that gets chronicled in the gossip columns, that these two things are incompatible.
I always hope people will like me, and I'm always afraid they will think I'm a fraud. I try harder than perhaps I should to make people like me, then it backfires. They think I'm a buffoon.
The definition of gumbo is almost as slippery as that of Creole. Just as gumbo can contain pretty much any kind of meat or seafood, Creole is a vague and inclusive term for native New Orleanians, who may be black or white, depending on whom you're asking.
Publishers send me a lot of first novels because my first novel was the defining novel of my career, and I guess a lot of people want my benediction or something.
You know, I'm always surprised when I read profiles, and they make me sound so jaded. I am so not jaded.
Most novelists I know went through a period of intense self-examination and self-loathing after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. I certainly did.
I think a lot of the people who write about me think that if they had to write fewer interviews then they would transcribe their life-story and it would be a big success. Or should be.
I certainly think that the publishing houses have to learn more about this informal network of literary blogging and get over the idea that sending an author on a book tour - to Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles - is a successful model anymore.
I don't think I found my voice until I reached New York. I suppose it's possible I would have had some kind of different literary career if I had not discovered New York.
The only sensible approach is not to take it too seriously. What counts is the writing.
Sometimes I think everything I touch turns into a Page Six item.
The most interesting things that happen in my books are usually the things that arise spontaneously, the things that surprise me.