McInerney is a good guy who's been besieged by a literary press that has often sought to vilify a set of writers who were at Bennington at the same time. The press narratives about writers are often just as fictional as the novels are.
I've met McInerney once or twice, liked him, and had the same impression: He's a good guy. That a group of college friends hung out together in New York is, as you say, no reason to pillory them. Some were very good writers. I liked Tama Janowitz's "Slaves of New York" stories as well as "Bright Lights, Big City."
You're so welcome, Mary. I find mixed reviews perhaps the hardest and most time-consuming to write, because you need to tell the truth while allowing that some people may find value in a book for all its defects. It's so much easier to rave or rant! Much appreciate the feedback.
Your last paragraph suggests to me what the novel is. If you have to ask so many questions about what a book is, it can be only one thing - a mess! Making my way through a mess has no appeal for me. I may pass on this one.
That novel opened well (which is why I persisted despite the Kirkus warning about how its wonky end). But it's so digressive I can see why you or others might give up.
Glad I read that line about how "grossly humid" the city can be, though, given that we're having another day like that here in lower Alabama. Our forecasters tend spin the weather in the best way and go for clever lines like "air you can wear. But the truth is: Sometimes it just feels gross when you have to work to keep sweat or sunblock from dripping all over the pages of a library book.
I don’t do digressive well. I have no patience for it. It is a rare talent that can keep a reader engaged through digressions. It sounds as if The Fact Checker needed an editor! And I know what you mean about humidity being gross. The air is thick where I live too. Some mornings I go outside and feel as if I have just hit a wall of water.
You must find challenging at times to live in the South if the digressions can rankle. I enjoy that famous Southern gift storytelling. But sometimes I want to beg a speaker to get the point and skip the backstory about something that happened to your great-granddaddy several generations ago.
McInerney is a self-loathing jerk. He was the template for Hank Moody (played by David Duchovny) on Californication. "You can only screw up your life so many time that it becomes parody." Or words to that effect.
I have a kinder view, Kent. He’s aged better than a lot of writers in his second career as a wine critic. I've enjoyed his wine columns for the WSJ and elsewhere much more than some of the very bad novels I've read by older writers who've kept writing long after they've run out of gas.
To me, he was a poor, little rich kid who got richer and famous after 'Bright Lights.' I thought it was a rip-off of the "Tales of The City" novels by Armistead Maupin. I don't drink wine, nor read the WSJ, so there's that as well.
I have a different impression there, too. His father was corporate executive, and my sense is that the family was well off, not rich. McInerney did get rich after "Bright Lights," though. And I loved "Tales of the City." That book must be so painful for a lot of people to read given how much San Francisco has declined since Maupin wrote it.
True, but in the context of which they were written, and the times, they both haven't aged well. San Francisco isn't the same, but neither is any city for that matter. Fifteen years prior to 'Tales,' SF was hippie central and Haight-Ashbury. A matter of perspective. Plus, we were young then, as well.
OK, we finally agree! A big shock for many people here in the South is how much even the once-charming New Orleans has declined, with junkies with needles still in their arms sprawled on Bourbon Street in broad daylight.
McInerney is a good guy who's been besieged by a literary press that has often sought to vilify a set of writers who were at Bennington at the same time. The press narratives about writers are often just as fictional as the novels are.
I've met McInerney once or twice, liked him, and had the same impression: He's a good guy. That a group of college friends hung out together in New York is, as you say, no reason to pillory them. Some were very good writers. I liked Tama Janowitz's "Slaves of New York" stories as well as "Bright Lights, Big City."
Your review made me very much not want to read The Fact Checker but very much want to continue reading your reviews. Thank you
+1
I appreciate the opening where Jan acknowledges this is a tough one to review.
Thank you!
You're so welcome, Mary. I find mixed reviews perhaps the hardest and most time-consuming to write, because you need to tell the truth while allowing that some people may find value in a book for all its defects. It's so much easier to rave or rant! Much appreciate the feedback.
Your last paragraph suggests to me what the novel is. If you have to ask so many questions about what a book is, it can be only one thing - a mess! Making my way through a mess has no appeal for me. I may pass on this one.
That novel opened well (which is why I persisted despite the Kirkus warning about how its wonky end). But it's so digressive I can see why you or others might give up.
Glad I read that line about how "grossly humid" the city can be, though, given that we're having another day like that here in lower Alabama. Our forecasters tend spin the weather in the best way and go for clever lines like "air you can wear. But the truth is: Sometimes it just feels gross when you have to work to keep sweat or sunblock from dripping all over the pages of a library book.
I don’t do digressive well. I have no patience for it. It is a rare talent that can keep a reader engaged through digressions. It sounds as if The Fact Checker needed an editor! And I know what you mean about humidity being gross. The air is thick where I live too. Some mornings I go outside and feel as if I have just hit a wall of water.
You must find challenging at times to live in the South if the digressions can rankle. I enjoy that famous Southern gift storytelling. But sometimes I want to beg a speaker to get the point and skip the backstory about something that happened to your great-granddaddy several generations ago.
McInerney is a self-loathing jerk. He was the template for Hank Moody (played by David Duchovny) on Californication. "You can only screw up your life so many time that it becomes parody." Or words to that effect.
I have a kinder view, Kent. He’s aged better than a lot of writers in his second career as a wine critic. I've enjoyed his wine columns for the WSJ and elsewhere much more than some of the very bad novels I've read by older writers who've kept writing long after they've run out of gas.
To me, he was a poor, little rich kid who got richer and famous after 'Bright Lights.' I thought it was a rip-off of the "Tales of The City" novels by Armistead Maupin. I don't drink wine, nor read the WSJ, so there's that as well.
I have a different impression there, too. His father was corporate executive, and my sense is that the family was well off, not rich. McInerney did get rich after "Bright Lights," though. And I loved "Tales of the City." That book must be so painful for a lot of people to read given how much San Francisco has declined since Maupin wrote it.
True, but in the context of which they were written, and the times, they both haven't aged well. San Francisco isn't the same, but neither is any city for that matter. Fifteen years prior to 'Tales,' SF was hippie central and Haight-Ashbury. A matter of perspective. Plus, we were young then, as well.
OK, we finally agree! A big shock for many people here in the South is how much even the once-charming New Orleans has declined, with junkies with needles still in their arms sprawled on Bourbon Street in broad daylight.