THE 12 INTERVIEWS OF XMAS: Jay McInerney on James Joyce, Mick Jagger and Literary Succes

One of the perks of writing for Hot Press is that you occasionally get to hang out with your heroes. I met the iconoclastic American author Jay McInerney in Brooks Hotel in Dublin earlier this year. As a longtime admirer of his work, it was great to be able to sit down and have a chat with him.

What would have been better would have been to have interviewed him in the mid-1980s, when he was at the very height of his literary fame. McInerney was both cursed and blessed to have had a massively successful debut novel in 1984’s Bright Lights, Big City. It was a serious life-changer for him. As he explained, “Suddenly I was running around with Mick Jagger, having people hand me drugs in the street, staying out to all hours with movie stars and rock stars.”

Now in his early sixties, all of that is well behind him. There were no rock stars or actors among his Dublin entourage (just mild-mannered literary publicist Cormac Kinsella), and the only drug we consumed was caffeine.

Even so, it was good to meet him…

Light Follows Jay: Hot Press Meets Jay McInerney

They say that too much early success can ruin a writer. At the age of 28, Jay McInerney blasted to international fame and fortune upon the publication of his cocaine-fuelled debut, Bright Lights, Big City, in 1984. The experience certainly didn’t ruin him, but the Connecticut-born author freely admits that nothing he’s published since has had anything like the same impact.
“I don’t think anybody should be expected to write more than one zeitgeist novel in their lifetime,” he sighs. “Somehow people always do compare your subsequent productions to your first novel.”
Bright Lights was narrated by a 24-year-old writer who worked as a fact-checker for a high-brow magazine by day, and debased himself in the New York nightclub scene by night. Given that McInerney had just been fired from The New Yorker before he wrote the novel, it was widely regarded as a roman à clef.
“That book was successful in a way that very few books are,” he recalls. “I was the focus of attention because it seemed like I was the protagonist of the book. Suddenly I was running around with Mick Jagger, having people hand me drugs in the street, staying out to all hours with movie stars and rock stars. There was this public persona that became very hard to escape – this model-dating, cocaine-snorting, nightclubbing ‘Jay McInerney’. All of that had a basis in reality, but the caricature was confining. It was overwhelming.”
We’re meeting in Brooks Hotel, Dublin, to discuss his eighth novel, Bright Precious Days. Having made it to 61, the chiselled and well-groomed McInerney – who’s now on his fourth wife – looks at least a decade younger. While at one point he was as famous for his hedonistic lifestyle as he was for his fiction, he’s obviously no longer partying quite as hard as he used to.
“I don’t do cocaine anymore, but even then it wasn’t quite what people thought,” he insists. “I always pulled back at a certain point. I wasn’t always out partying. People somehow imagined after reading Bright Lights, and seeing a picture of me coming out of a nightclub, that that’s my life – that’s what I do. I was also writing. I would retreat from the highlife to get my writing done. It wasn’t constant, 24/7.”
This must be true. For all of his reported partying – and snorting of what he famously termed “Bolivian marching powder” – with fellow literary brat-packers Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz, McInerney was incredibly prolific in his thirties, releasing five subsequent novels in rapid succession.
He says that he always wanted to be a writer. “When I was 12-years-old, I read Dylan Thomas. That started me off on the whole thing. For the longest time, I wanted to write poetry, but then I changed my religion to fiction.”
This is his third trip to Dublin. As the birthplace of one of his favourite authors, it’s a city he’s always happy to visit. “When I read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I think that was what switched me over. I thought, ‘Hey! Prose can be beautiful and lyrical and musical as well as poetry. And I also get to tell stories!’ Joyce was a big one for me. Portrait is great for a young man, because it’s a book about a young man discovering his writing vocation. It’s perfect.”
Although he’s published short story collections and three non-fiction books on wine in recent years, Bright Precious Days is his first novel in a decade. It offers a third look into the glamorous, troubled and eventful lives of Manhattan golden couple Russell and Corrine Calloway. The Calloways first featured in 1992’s Brightness Falls, which culminated with the 1987 stock market crash. Then came The Good Life in 2006, which examined the aftermath of 9/11. This latest installment is set in 2007, as the financial world – and the Calloway’s marriage – barrels towards another messy meltdown.
Was it always the intention to write a trilogy?
“No, it was not,” he says, shaking his head. “When I wrote the first one, I conceived this notion of a broad panoramic novel of New York, as compared to my other novels. Bright Lights and Story of My Life were narrowly focused, voice driven novels. I wanted to get a bigger picture.
“I remember the image that started that book. I was standing on Fifth Avenue, and across the street I saw this billionaire named Ronald Perelman standing next to a homeless guy with a bag of cans. I thought to myself, ‘I really want to write a book that has both of those characters in it’. I also needed somebody to hold the middle together. I had just written a short story called ‘Smoke’ about this couple, Russell and Corrine Calloway. I thought they would make good representatives.
“It didn’t occur to me that I was going to go on with it,” he continues. “I killed off one of the main characters – Jeff Pierce – in that first book. I don’t think I would’ve done that had I planned on revisiting these people. He was one of the more interesting characters.”
Speaking of interesting characters, is McInerney still in touch with Bret Easton Ellis?
“We exchange the occasional email,” he shrugs. “We were very good friends in New York. For many years, we would have dinner every Friday night, which would often last into Saturday morning. He’d leave my apartment about eight in the morning on Saturday. He moved to LA about ten years ago. He really had a bad experience in New York.”
What happened?
“His boyfriend died. He had issues of his own that he couldn’t seem to escape in New York. I think he just decided to turn his back on New York entirely. He doesn’t come back. I only see him when I go to LA, which is not much these days. He’s really thrown himself into movies and his podcast stuff. I wish he’d write another novel. I personally believe that writing novels is a higher calling than hosting podcasts or being a screenwriter.”
Having said that, McInerney has written numerous screenplays himself. “Yeah, I’ve actually written twelve, but only two of them have been produced,” he laughs. “The only screenplay that I had fun with was Gia. I think it was ‘95, Angelina Jolie’s first big role, and the first original movie produced by HBO. They used to just replay old movies. That was fun and interesting, and Angelina Jolie brought it to life.”
It’s currently looking likely that the Calloway trilogy will be adapted for the screen. “What looks to be happening in the States is that these three books are going to be developed for a long miniseries, or a three-season TV series. Which makes sense. There’s way too much stuff to make a movie.
“Brightness Falls was optioned many times to film producers, but nothing ever came of it. There seems to be more creative energy and integrity in the television world now than the feature film business in Hollywood. There’s not a lot of intelligent, character-driven stuff anymore.”
What’s the big ambition now?
“Ambition? To keep writing as well as I can – and possibly to write my masterpiece the next time out.”
Asked whether he considers any of his books to be masterpieces, he smiles modestly and taps the copy of Bright Precious Days on the table. “With this book – this would be a good time to be hit by a cab if I had to. This book does feel like a big milestone for me, and a big achievement. It also completes the other two, I guess. That means a lot to me. I’m glad I got this far. I’m pleased with a lot of these books, but I always want to do better.”
Does Jay McInerney have a motto in life?
“It used to be ‘Eat, drink, and remarry’,” he laughs. “I think it’s now ‘Eat, drink, and stay married’, because I’m about to celebrate my tenth anniversary with my fourth marriage. I hope to stick with this one.”

Bright Precious Days is out now, published by Bloomsbury.