Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

This book was a big deal when it came out in 1984, a year that, according to George Orwell, was supposed to be a big deal, too, until everyone realized 1984 didn't differ much from the year(s) before and after it. But the same couldn't be said of Bright Lights, Big City. This was a book that the New York-based publishing industry was waiting for, written by a young, white, middle-class, straight male author who could and therefore should be the next Fitzgerald or Hemingway, both of whom were long dead and in need of replacing.

I have tried to read this book three times since it came out, but recently gave it another go after buying it for a quarter off a blanket on East Hastings Street. The book is 182 pages long and I am on Page 124, with our second-person narrator looking to self-destruct in the ballroom of New York's Waldorf-Astoria, where his ex-wife -- a fashion model -- is working. For those familiar with the book, this scene is typical of the world our narrator inhabits; but the scene below isn't, and that, apart from some very fine writing, is what kept me reading.

"The evening is cool. You find yourself walking the Village, pointing out landmarks and favourite townhouses. Only yesterday you would have considered such a stroll too New Jersey for words, but tonight you remember how much you used to like this part of the city. The whole neighbourhood smells of Italian food. The streets have friendlier names and cut weird angles into the rectilinear map of the city. The buildings are humble in scale and don't try to intimidate you. Gay giants stride past on hypertrophied thighs, swathed in leather and chains, and they do intimidate you." (p. 94)