Literary icon at The White Hart

SALISBURY — Some of those listening to Jay McInerney read from his latest book at The White Hart last Tuesday, Sept. 20, were too young to remember New York City when it was dark, grungy, and alive with creative possibilities. But others nodded in recognition as the 61-year-old author, who burst onto the literary scene in 1984 with “Bright Lights, Big City,” recalled what it was like when he arrived there in late 1979.

 “It was a time when a young man or woman could actually find an affordable apartment, something I’m afraid is not true today,” he said, addressing the full house from his perch behind a podium. “The apartment might be in a bad neighborhood, it might be broken into frequently, you might risk getting mugged when you went outside, but there were still areas around the edges where you could live or open an art gallery or a nightclub.”

 “Bright Lights, Big City” — cited by Time magazine as one of the top generation-defining novels of the 20th century — remains an evocative reflection of New York’s transition “from ‘Taxi Driver’ dilapidation to ‘Wall Street’ opulence,” as one reviewer put it. Like Tom Wolfe’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” it’s a classic American story of excess leading to disgrace and redemption, with a narrator, like its author, fired from his fact-checking job at a prestigious magazine after over-indulging in the era’s late-night clubbing and “Bolivian marching powder.” 

An alumnus of Williams College, McInerney was born in Hartford and graduated from high school in Pittsfield, Mass. To date, he’s written 12 books, including nine works of fiction and three nonfiction books on wine; since 1996, he’s been a wine critic for House & Garden, the Wall Street Journal and currently Town & Country. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1988 movie version of “Bright Lights, Big City,” which starred Michael J. Fox, and co-wrote the 1998 movie “Gia.” 

His preferred fictional backdrop remains Manhattan, and his new book, “Bright, Precious Days,” is the third he’s written about quintessential New York “golden couple” Russell and Corrine Calloway — he a literary editor and publisher whose company is on the verge of bankruptcy, she a one-time broker and screenwriter who runs a charitable food kitchen — who are also the protagonists of “Brightness Falls” (1992) and “The Good Life” (2006). 

Set against the financial collapse of 2008, “Bright, Precious Days” explores how these formerly young but still urban professionals deal with the disappointments of middle age, or what the author terms “receding expectations.” An ongoing nostalgia for the more dynamic past prevails throughout: “We didn’t know it was the ’80s,” a character remarks, at a dinner party. “No one told us until about 1987, and by then it was almost over.”

 Said McInerney: “Both Russell and Corrine are trying to come to terms with the fact that they’re no longer young, that their days on earth are at least half over.” While outwardly successful, the Calloways rent rather than own their Tribeca loft, and struggle with the uncomfortable reality that most of their friends play on “Team Power and Money” versus their own “Team Art and Love.”  

In a bid to make their fortune, Russell, whose nickname is Crash, risks everything by bidding on a first-person book by a journalist supposedly kidnapped by the Taliban in Pakistan. “The question of whether or not money can solve life’s big problems is another theme,” said McInerney, noting that his original working title was “Thin City,” which reflected Manhattan’s elongated geography as well as the “needle-like skyscrapers” rising as repositories of global wealth for absentee oligarchs. 

“The city has changed a great deal since 1980, and not all for the good,” he said. But, he added: “It’s still the center of the world, of literature, publishing, fashion, finance, advertising, the arts …and it’s still a place that continues to fascinate me. For all of the scary and depressing things that happen to the characters in this book, I think it still ends up being something of a love letter to New York.”

The White Hart Inn Speaker Series, presented in collaboration with Oblong Books & Music and Scoville Memorial Library, continues in October with appearances by authors Emma Donahue and Craig Nelson and cartoonist Garry Trudeau. For details go to www.oblongbooks.com/events. Tickets are free and can be booked online through Eventbrite.