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Model Behaviour
'I'm sick of all this pointless glamour,' his glamorous girlfriend said. 'I want a simple life.' If only Connor McKnight had listened. Now Philomena is off to California, allegedly on a fashion shoot, but he doesn't know where she is staying and a sinking feeling tells him that she might never come back. Connor's friend Jeremy Green is no help: he is the 'famous short-story writer' (which they both agree is an oxymoron) with an imminent publication date and some people holding his dog to ransom for reasons too Machiavellian to blurb. Connor's sister Brook, genius mathematician and anorexic, is too busy anguishing over Rwanda and Bosnia. His editor at CiaoBella!, 'a lifestyle magazine for young women', is only concerned about Connor's profile of Chip Ralston, the celebrity of the month whose PR fortress has suddenly become impenetrable. Thank goodness for Pallas, a knock-out table dancer with a heart of gold. As the reader wonders with Connor what's happened to Philomena, if Jeremy will get his dog back, and whether our hero will get his interview with Chip, the wonderful narrative roars away at a stunning clip. Jay McInerney is on absolutely top form in this hilarious (and serious) novel about celebrity, romance and 20th-century literature.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
15 people are currently reading
835 people want to read
About the author
Jay McInerney
65 books1,072 followersJohn Barrett McInerney Jr. is an American writer. 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 is the wine columnist for House & Garden magazine, and his essays on wine have been collected in Bacchus & Me (2000) and A Hedonist in the Cellar (2006). His most recent novel is titled The Good Life, published in 2006.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
May 22, 2016
Loved 'Bright Lights,Big City'and have lost count how many times I have read it mainly because it was a bit rough around the edges, really funny, and captured the vibe of 80's New York similar to what Bret Easton Ellis did with American Psycho, so I was disappointed with this as felt McInerney was almost trying to hard, it was too polished and clever for it's own good like he was trying to write an Easton Ellis novel instead of his own and with self indulgent characters who quite frankly were just plain boring there was not really enough to keep me interested. On the plus side there were some great one-liners and Conner's sister Brook who was anorexic and seemed to be carrying all the problems in the world on her shoulders I did take to my heart.
January 30, 2010
This is going to sound dickish, but I really love reading great author's least-great works. I love watching them struggle with being pigeonheld. I love them writing down bad ideas. I love when an author becomes so famous that all they can think about is the thoughts and emotions of a famous writer.
July 28, 2021
(2.5) Probably not the best place to start with McInerney, who I haven’t read before; this was a random find in a charity bookshop. It’s always a bit of a gamble when you read something that was originally up-to-the-minute decades after its publication (I suspect this wasn’t all that up-to-the-minute anyway, but it’s certainly determined to act like it is, with the pop-culture/fashion/celebrity/etc. references stuffed in at every turn). Follows a mediocre journalist, his model girlfriend, and their author friend through various empty exploits around New York. It rattles along at a clip, and I read it really quickly, but I got to the end without caring once about anyone or anything in it. Also, despite the presence of numerous sex scenes, curiously sexless somehow.
TinyLetter | Linktree
TinyLetter | Linktree
May 16, 2009
One of my all time favorite books! McInerney has such a voice. If the house were to ever burn down, this is the one I'm grabbing before I jump out the window.
October 21, 2022
With it’s lead characters random thoughts as frequent title page breaks, it’s like reading a slightly naughty comic strip about the NYC publishing and fashion worlds. It might not be as much of a classic as the white cotton tee on its cover but it may be just as cool.
January 14, 2016
I am a huge Bret Easton Ellis fan and had heard that I would probably enjoy reading Jay McInerney books. Initially seeing the reviews, I didn't know how well I would like the book. The writing style is very similar to Ellis. The exception is that this book was much more light hearted than an Ellis book and it had some funny moments. The characters and the book are zany and all over the place. His relationship with his sister was a little incestuous/odd. It was a short book to give a taste of what McInerney's books are like. I look forward to reading more of his work.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 10, 2008
It's like a college creative writing student wanted to update Bright Lights, Big City for the 90s and decided that the second-person narrative would be too difficult to hack.
October 6, 2016
Like a dated 1990s cross between Franny and Zooey and The Sun Also Rises with a helping of Sex And The City? I liked the self aware disdain of celebrity culture from a D list perspective.
May 16, 2023
Having read several of Jay McInerney's works when first published, returning to read Model Behaviour sounded like an entertaining dip back into a familiar talent's pool.
Of course, revisiting almost anything from the 1980s & 90s in 2023 can seem jarring, especially if one lived through those years. The 1990's milieu of "Model Behavior's coexists inexorably with jaded Manhattan culture (Tina Brown, David Letterman, and modelizer references from early Sex and the City anyone?) and McInerney's reputation as a celebrity novelist.
What seemed so fresh & rebellious in one's youth often does not hold its strength and vitality 20+ years later. Much like imagining the sweetly preppy (but already lecherous) frat boys from our youth who seemed destined to rule the world in university days at Princeton (or the like) but who now appear beet red in the face to match their sad hats at rallies decrying they will not be replaced. Both their hats and their political hatred perhaps manufactured in or supply chained from China or Hungary.
Our protagonist Connor McNab has his moments of self-reflection and caring, but both are largely hidden well amongst the celebrity sightings; Absolute vodka served in tumblers; early infotainment journalism; the earnest ennui of actors, writers, and models decrying their lot in life as privileged white post-Yuppies; plus, the rise of celebrity stalker & paparazzo culture.
3.5 stars rounded down to 3.
Of course, revisiting almost anything from the 1980s & 90s in 2023 can seem jarring, especially if one lived through those years. The 1990's milieu of "Model Behavior's coexists inexorably with jaded Manhattan culture (Tina Brown, David Letterman, and modelizer references from early Sex and the City anyone?) and McInerney's reputation as a celebrity novelist.
What seemed so fresh & rebellious in one's youth often does not hold its strength and vitality 20+ years later. Much like imagining the sweetly preppy (but already lecherous) frat boys from our youth who seemed destined to rule the world in university days at Princeton (or the like) but who now appear beet red in the face to match their sad hats at rallies decrying they will not be replaced. Both their hats and their political hatred perhaps manufactured in or supply chained from China or Hungary.
Our protagonist Connor McNab has his moments of self-reflection and caring, but both are largely hidden well amongst the celebrity sightings; Absolute vodka served in tumblers; early infotainment journalism; the earnest ennui of actors, writers, and models decrying their lot in life as privileged white post-Yuppies; plus, the rise of celebrity stalker & paparazzo culture.
3.5 stars rounded down to 3.
July 5, 2025
Way better than Bright Lights, you fucking degenerates. On par with – probably better than – Story of My Life on a sentence level, but Alison's voice is way stronger.
July 17, 2024
Conor is a struggling writer in 1990’s New York. He has an enviable life, a model girlfriend, writes well received articles for well-received magazines, but it doesn’t seem to be enough.
His friends include the reclusive, but championed short-story writer Jeremy Green whose own story is something of a novel in it’s own right. Brook, Conor’s sister is too busy caring about the rest of the world, that she cannot see her own life falling apart around her, whilst Conor’s Parents offer concerned support.
Model Behaviour is one of those novels which looks at the human condition, from the perspective of a privelleged central character, who’s own character traits will be the undoing of life, rather than the people. Throughout the short chapters, we learn much about Conor, but he doesn’t reveal too much of his life, he seems to be more of an observer,than a central character, but that approach doesn’t detract from the quality of writing or shory-telling that made McInerney’s name and reputation. Indeed, some of the chapters are written in the third person, whilst other’s are told in the first.
The use of real characters in the novel, from Matthew Broderick, to any number of the pop stars that Conor writes about for magazines such as Ciao Bello help to add both glamour, and reality, as well as grounding the novel in a certain time and place.
The book is both witty, and full of pathos. Conor has it all, or on the surface at least, does, even though as the story-line develops, he loses what he used to have. The ending of the book is stylistically believable, and also inevitable. Even successful people in a busy city like New York have to learn some things, some times.
His friends include the reclusive, but championed short-story writer Jeremy Green whose own story is something of a novel in it’s own right. Brook, Conor’s sister is too busy caring about the rest of the world, that she cannot see her own life falling apart around her, whilst Conor’s Parents offer concerned support.
Model Behaviour is one of those novels which looks at the human condition, from the perspective of a privelleged central character, who’s own character traits will be the undoing of life, rather than the people. Throughout the short chapters, we learn much about Conor, but he doesn’t reveal too much of his life, he seems to be more of an observer,than a central character, but that approach doesn’t detract from the quality of writing or shory-telling that made McInerney’s name and reputation. Indeed, some of the chapters are written in the third person, whilst other’s are told in the first.
The use of real characters in the novel, from Matthew Broderick, to any number of the pop stars that Conor writes about for magazines such as Ciao Bello help to add both glamour, and reality, as well as grounding the novel in a certain time and place.
The book is both witty, and full of pathos. Conor has it all, or on the surface at least, does, even though as the story-line develops, he loses what he used to have. The ending of the book is stylistically believable, and also inevitable. Even successful people in a busy city like New York have to learn some things, some times.
November 6, 2019
A celebrity columnist for a fashion magazine is having troubles with his model girlfriend, who is leaving for work in California. His best-friend is a self-important, depressive short story writer about to release his new collection. The columnist’s sister is suffering from an eating disorder, he is perilously close to losing his job at the magazine, and is also being stalked via email by a super-fan. The story resembles that of “Bright Lights, Big City,” but now in the 90s: an intelligent young white man on a personal & professional descent in NYC. The familiarity does slightly undercut the enjoyment, but McInerney’s writing is still as raucous and clever as ever. We want to root for the protagonist, but he makes it difficult with all his poor choices This is easily his most post-modern novel, filled as it is with self-reference and /-cynicism. The stories were much more mature and realized, the novel too similar to his earlier work; not to mention slightly juvenile and like he was trying to show off. However, I feel like a dolt because it was only after finishing the stories that I found out all of them are in his collection "How It Ended" which I purchased recently. But, at least I have the physical copy of the stories, which I preferred.
December 28, 2008
I was really pleasantly surprised at how funny this was, I didn't remember "Bright Lights Big City" being humorous at all. It was like a more light-hearted Bret Easton Ellis (who McInerney references, as well as himself, in true meta-fashion--Ellis actually used McInerney as a character [as well as himself] in "Lunar Park.") The comedy stems from the zany characters themselves, as well as the writing style which is kind of smarmy and smug, but in an entertaining way. The main character, of course, is a 30-year-old man still in an adolescent lifestyle, and the story is that of his wacky New York world--comprised of his model girlfriend, militant vegetarian best friend, anorexic sister, alcoholic parents, etc.--as it begins to collapse around him. My only problem was that it had one of those tacked-on endings where someone dies out of nowhere in a last-ditch attempt at some gravitas in an otherwise fun little romp, kind of like some Wes Anderson movies.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 27, 2016
I think most of you wouldn't give this five stars, so consider two of these stars as extra love because I do love my 90s Brat Pack novelist kids (McInerney, Ellis, DeLillo, the Gen-Xers, you know them when you read them).
Well so if you had read this when it came out in the late 1990s, I guess the theme would be super-models and ennui and relationships? Maybe? Man, I don't even KNOW . Because I was all in love with the words and also loving all of the 1990s references and going I REMEMBER THAT. Oh man! Jil Sander! Answering machines! Caller ID! Asking the question, "what is caller ID?" Wearing the perfect designer white t-shirt underneath a designer suit!
(yeah I never did that one because I was not quite an adult in the 1990s and couldn't afford such things, but I read about them and wanted them)
Smart drugs! Not called Molly because Molly didn't exist yet! The restaurant 21! Thinking Tina Brown as a magazine person was hot shit!
SO AWESOME.
Well so if you had read this when it came out in the late 1990s, I guess the theme would be super-models and ennui and relationships? Maybe? Man, I don't even KNOW . Because I was all in love with the words and also loving all of the 1990s references and going I REMEMBER THAT. Oh man! Jil Sander! Answering machines! Caller ID! Asking the question, "what is caller ID?" Wearing the perfect designer white t-shirt underneath a designer suit!
(yeah I never did that one because I was not quite an adult in the 1990s and couldn't afford such things, but I read about them and wanted them)
Smart drugs! Not called Molly because Molly didn't exist yet! The restaurant 21! Thinking Tina Brown as a magazine person was hot shit!
SO AWESOME.
April 27, 2013
Una de las cosas que amé de esta novela es que no esperaba nada de ella y terminó dejándome un montón de frases memorables en medio de toda esa comedia del absurdo. Similar a Bret Easton Ellis, pero sin la hiperviolencia ni la obsesión por los detalles descriptivos, lo que lo vuelve tremendamente digerible y divertido. Es como una bolsa de doritos nachos.
Aquí las mejores citas del libro:
http://yorkperry.blogspot.mx/2009/11/...
Aquí las mejores citas del libro:
http://yorkperry.blogspot.mx/2009/11/...
March 16, 2015
This guy would be a good writer if he just stopped writing. It's all so damn worked on , and re- worked on, and then CLEVER-he is trying so hard to be clever "did you get that sentence? Clever, aren't I? I AM JUST SO CLEVER.Do you want me to write it again..?" Maybe with a little twist..of clever..?"It's almost impossible to read.Too bad because like I said - f he wasn't so busy being "Writerly" he'd probably be a good writer.That's it.JM
June 22, 2023
Very soft spoilers ahead:
I enjoyed the book for what it was. It was a mildly-relatable story chronicling a depressed writer as he navigates friends and work in a field that does not treat people kindly.
I say "mildly" as many of us can empathize with losing a partner, but not necessarily with being sad at a party with societal echelons that are heightening your career or naming connections one after the other. It made the balance between "relatable everyday man" and "guy dating a model and interviewing movie stars" difficult to navigate.
Many of the problems were treated as jokes (dog loss, eating disorders) and maybe that was part of the point, that the characters didn't care in the ways they should, but everyone's apathy manifested in largely the same way that characters rarely felt unique.
The two main characters, Connor and Philomena had the most fleshed personalities (reasonably, since the novel revolved around them) but otherwise the rest of the cast wasn't particularly notable.
I didn't dislike the book, and it made for an easy weekend read. If you enjoy exploring celebrity despondence or social horror, you'll likely enjoy this for what it is.
I enjoyed the book for what it was. It was a mildly-relatable story chronicling a depressed writer as he navigates friends and work in a field that does not treat people kindly.
I say "mildly" as many of us can empathize with losing a partner, but not necessarily with being sad at a party with societal echelons that are heightening your career or naming connections one after the other. It made the balance between "relatable everyday man" and "guy dating a model and interviewing movie stars" difficult to navigate.
Many of the problems were treated as jokes (dog loss, eating disorders) and maybe that was part of the point, that the characters didn't care in the ways they should, but everyone's apathy manifested in largely the same way that characters rarely felt unique.
The two main characters, Connor and Philomena had the most fleshed personalities (reasonably, since the novel revolved around them) but otherwise the rest of the cast wasn't particularly notable.
I didn't dislike the book, and it made for an easy weekend read. If you enjoy exploring celebrity despondence or social horror, you'll likely enjoy this for what it is.
March 13, 2024
My unfounded theory is that Jay, knowing Bret Easton Ellis' lengthy take on 90s model and celebrity culture was nearing publication, rushed to have the first say and churned out Model Behaviour in a few weeks. I can't see how else it came together; how else an editor, a publisher, thought this was an acceptable offering from a member of the literary 'brat pack'. Look, Jay is at least self-aware enough to admit this isn't his best work (a review of a character's short story collection includes the following: "'Walled-In', [Jeremy's] new collection, seems less like the product of an original artistic vision than a self-conscious display of glitzy urban angst"), but this doesn't excuse the fact that Model Behaviour is a bad novel. And what makes it all the more frustrating is the handful of effective passages that hint at what it could have been.
If you want to read an excellent novel about the same milieu, just read Glamorama. It’s a surreal nightmare and not enough people talk about it
If you want to read an excellent novel about the same milieu, just read Glamorama. It’s a surreal nightmare and not enough people talk about it
August 27, 2023
Readable, but a paler 90s cynicism next to the fresh, idealist's cynicism of Bright Lights, Big City. Perhaps reading them in succession did Model Behaviour a disservice - or perhaps my goodwill to McInerney brushed over the more obvious flaws.
The person switches between first, second and third for no obvious reason; perhaps an attempt to give the novel some grown-up literary feel, reader to add own interpretation. It feels a bit posturing. The story is not strong enough in itself to get by without something more interesting to hitch up to, but the person device ain't it. The characters, particularly narrator's cocktail mother, have a bit of twinkle to them, and the jokes hit more often than not.
It's a decent novel, worth a read and a fair-if-flat follow-on to its 80s sibling. Its more mature outlook, though, loses its spark and sincerity. Maybe the 90s were just not that fun.
The person switches between first, second and third for no obvious reason; perhaps an attempt to give the novel some grown-up literary feel, reader to add own interpretation. It feels a bit posturing. The story is not strong enough in itself to get by without something more interesting to hitch up to, but the person device ain't it. The characters, particularly narrator's cocktail mother, have a bit of twinkle to them, and the jokes hit more often than not.
It's a decent novel, worth a read and a fair-if-flat follow-on to its 80s sibling. Its more mature outlook, though, loses its spark and sincerity. Maybe the 90s were just not that fun.
February 27, 2022
Jay McInerney you are still the absolute best. I just absolutely love his “voice” and writing style. It is very New York and very Woody Allen in the sense that all characters are very well read and artsy, even in their decadence and neuroticism. This one is about the downfall of the relationship between the main character (Connor, a script writer wannabe that actually works for a fashion magazine) and a beautiful but unstable model (Phil). It is written in very short chapters (just a couple of paragraphs long), with a very humorous and self-deprecating tone. I am a sucker for these types of books. Really really great. Will surely be rereading many times in the future (as I do with Jay’s other books).
February 2, 2025
My first McInerney novel which I was really looking forward to reading, being compared to Easton Ellis. However I was warned this wasn’t a great place to start with his works and that was true.
The first half of this was a real slog, found it quite difficult to get going with it. But, as the second act comes into play I did find things more enjoyable as I began to understand his language and wit.
This would’ve been closer to a 2.5, but it wont let me give half star ratings at the moment, I swear you used to be able to.
Keen to read his earlier works in the future. Apparently this was more of a parody of himself, which is hard to make sense of without reading his prior accomplishments.
The first half of this was a real slog, found it quite difficult to get going with it. But, as the second act comes into play I did find things more enjoyable as I began to understand his language and wit.
This would’ve been closer to a 2.5, but it wont let me give half star ratings at the moment, I swear you used to be able to.
Keen to read his earlier works in the future. Apparently this was more of a parody of himself, which is hard to make sense of without reading his prior accomplishments.
February 23, 2025
went to the library looking to take out bright light big cities but it wasn’t in stock so i picked this up. sososo boring until the end im sorry. i wanted so badly for this to intrigued me. the first couple of pages were pretty strong (amazing opening page). i just thought the characters were not fleshed out well, the pacing was too slow, no action until the last 20 ish hours pages, his parents were not believable and i wish we got to know jennie more (she was the only person that i was genuinely interested in). but once i start a book i kind of have to finish it. so i did! disappointed. i will still read his other book when it is stocked in my library because ive heard great things!
August 20, 2020
I think this book came as a free giveaway with a magazine in the 90s. It sat on my shelves for 20 years+. I had never read anything by McInerney before, so all I had to go off of was the front cover - which set expectations low. I'm glad I didn't read it until now as it was a joy to be transported from 2020 back to the culture of the 1990s - when waspish judgmental comments were much more fashionable than they are today. I suspect the gulf between then and now made it feel more interesting. Reminds me of Will and Grace somewhat!
May 2, 2010
My S.F. Chronicle review from 1998:
It's hard to escape the feeling, reading the latest from the author of ``Bright Lights, Big City,'' that Jay McInerney really wanted to write a novel about a good-looking, model-dating Manhattan-based writer, still fighting the hangover of early success, who falls into a crisis over whether fiction-writing is meaningless.
McInerney actually does weigh in with ``Model Behavior,'' a 174-page novelette about a model- dating trash-magazine writer whose life is falling apart, much like the hero in McInerney's best-selling debut novel oh so many years ago. But, seemingly in acknowledgment that a tale so heavy with echoes of earlier work might not satisfy his public, McInerney packages it with seven previously published short stories.
It's a dangerous strategy that opens McInerney up to all sorts of ridicule, like the cheating husband who tells his wife that really, truly there's nothing going on with his sky-diving instructor -- and even if there was, it doesn't mean a thing. If this is a novel we're reading, shouldn't it be enough? If it's not, why call it one? The stories serve mostly to cast a depressing light on the so-called novel.
But just when you're getting ready to unleash a broadside on McInerney for an often- charming, seldom-memorable novel that almost goes out of its way to fall short of reasonable expectations, the stories come along. They remind you of just how sharp McInerney's eye is, how deftly he can change speeds on you for comic effect. The McInerney character in a story called ``Smoke,'' about a couple trying to toss cigarettes out of their lives, looks at his model-pretty wife: ``She was wearing her earnest, small-girl-wanting-to- know-why-the-sky-is-blue expression. He normally found this look devastating.''
And McInerney's gift for clear observation often gives him a certain psychological acuity, as when a movie star visiting his suicidal all-but- ex-wife at a scenic, expensive funny farm observes: ``Her eyes fastened onto his, tugging at him, asking for answers to all of her questions.''
But the most telling of the stories here may be ``How It Ended,'' whose clever title offers the story's only explicit mention of endings, as opposed to beginnings. Disguised as a tale of two young, cash-heavy couples on holiday in the tropics, this is really an 11-page clenched fist, shaking at The Muse and demanding: ``Why him? Why not me?!?''
McInerney saddles the self-satisfied narrator of this story with the name ``Donald,'' making it snidely clear how he feels about him. Donald and his wife, Cameron, meet a couple called the Van Heusens. The two couples get to drinking one evening as the sun ``was melting into the ocean, dyeing the water red and pink and gold. We all sat, hushed, watching the spectacle.''
Donald engages in his favorite game, asking other married couples how they met. Donald loves this game, we learn, because usually in the end he can tell the story of how he and Cameron met, a story he thinks kicks butt on any stories that might come along, the same way Mailer once imagined he kicked butt in the boxing great ring of contemporary letters.
But there's always someone out there with a better story, and this Van Heusen character has one: Long and involved, it starts with drug-dealing, an element that recurs in McInerney the way bears and wrestling do in John Irving. Then the tale, fortified by still more drinks, graduates to drug-running, time in a Cuban jail and the courtroom magicianship of a legendary attorney whose daughter ends up as Mrs. Van Heusen.
Poor Donald is quite out of sorts by the time Van Heusen's story is done. He hates Van Heusen, though he seems unclear on why. He hates Cameron for her sloppy-drunk clapping at its conclusion.
Unmanned in the storytelling department, Donald ultimately seems to hate himself: ``I turned back to my wife, grinning beside me in the cold sand. `You tell them,' I said.''
The story, first published in Playboy, suggests that McInerney seems to understand his central problem as a writer just as acutely as anyone: He has milked cocaine-flecked Manhattan night life for all it's worth, and he needs fresh material. He knows this. He practically sneers at the obviousness of the idea all through this book.
But we are still being asked to gulp down second-rate goods like they're the best McInerney can give us. Inside jokes from literary Manhattan just aren't enough, especially in McInerney's hodgepodge of a title novel.
McInerney, despite what some might say, is too good for this, too good to slip into the flaccid self-awareness of someone convinced of the a priori superiority of anything he writes just because it comes from him. Would it have been such a terrible thing to toss this entire novel into the recycle bin, and get to work on something a little fresher?
Talent carries with it responsibility. Not just in ``Bright Lights'' but in the lost-young-man- in-Japan-novel ``Ransom,'' written earlier and published later, McInerney announced himself as a talent to watch. Let's hope this lazy wink-in-the-mirror-of-a-novel, with its yeah- you've-really-got-it grin, amounts to a literary midlife crisis, and that we can look forward to whole new phase of McInerney's writing life.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi...
This article appeared on page RV - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle
It's hard to escape the feeling, reading the latest from the author of ``Bright Lights, Big City,'' that Jay McInerney really wanted to write a novel about a good-looking, model-dating Manhattan-based writer, still fighting the hangover of early success, who falls into a crisis over whether fiction-writing is meaningless.
McInerney actually does weigh in with ``Model Behavior,'' a 174-page novelette about a model- dating trash-magazine writer whose life is falling apart, much like the hero in McInerney's best-selling debut novel oh so many years ago. But, seemingly in acknowledgment that a tale so heavy with echoes of earlier work might not satisfy his public, McInerney packages it with seven previously published short stories.
It's a dangerous strategy that opens McInerney up to all sorts of ridicule, like the cheating husband who tells his wife that really, truly there's nothing going on with his sky-diving instructor -- and even if there was, it doesn't mean a thing. If this is a novel we're reading, shouldn't it be enough? If it's not, why call it one? The stories serve mostly to cast a depressing light on the so-called novel.
But just when you're getting ready to unleash a broadside on McInerney for an often- charming, seldom-memorable novel that almost goes out of its way to fall short of reasonable expectations, the stories come along. They remind you of just how sharp McInerney's eye is, how deftly he can change speeds on you for comic effect. The McInerney character in a story called ``Smoke,'' about a couple trying to toss cigarettes out of their lives, looks at his model-pretty wife: ``She was wearing her earnest, small-girl-wanting-to- know-why-the-sky-is-blue expression. He normally found this look devastating.''
And McInerney's gift for clear observation often gives him a certain psychological acuity, as when a movie star visiting his suicidal all-but- ex-wife at a scenic, expensive funny farm observes: ``Her eyes fastened onto his, tugging at him, asking for answers to all of her questions.''
But the most telling of the stories here may be ``How It Ended,'' whose clever title offers the story's only explicit mention of endings, as opposed to beginnings. Disguised as a tale of two young, cash-heavy couples on holiday in the tropics, this is really an 11-page clenched fist, shaking at The Muse and demanding: ``Why him? Why not me?!?''
McInerney saddles the self-satisfied narrator of this story with the name ``Donald,'' making it snidely clear how he feels about him. Donald and his wife, Cameron, meet a couple called the Van Heusens. The two couples get to drinking one evening as the sun ``was melting into the ocean, dyeing the water red and pink and gold. We all sat, hushed, watching the spectacle.''
Donald engages in his favorite game, asking other married couples how they met. Donald loves this game, we learn, because usually in the end he can tell the story of how he and Cameron met, a story he thinks kicks butt on any stories that might come along, the same way Mailer once imagined he kicked butt in the boxing great ring of contemporary letters.
But there's always someone out there with a better story, and this Van Heusen character has one: Long and involved, it starts with drug-dealing, an element that recurs in McInerney the way bears and wrestling do in John Irving. Then the tale, fortified by still more drinks, graduates to drug-running, time in a Cuban jail and the courtroom magicianship of a legendary attorney whose daughter ends up as Mrs. Van Heusen.
Poor Donald is quite out of sorts by the time Van Heusen's story is done. He hates Van Heusen, though he seems unclear on why. He hates Cameron for her sloppy-drunk clapping at its conclusion.
Unmanned in the storytelling department, Donald ultimately seems to hate himself: ``I turned back to my wife, grinning beside me in the cold sand. `You tell them,' I said.''
The story, first published in Playboy, suggests that McInerney seems to understand his central problem as a writer just as acutely as anyone: He has milked cocaine-flecked Manhattan night life for all it's worth, and he needs fresh material. He knows this. He practically sneers at the obviousness of the idea all through this book.
But we are still being asked to gulp down second-rate goods like they're the best McInerney can give us. Inside jokes from literary Manhattan just aren't enough, especially in McInerney's hodgepodge of a title novel.
McInerney, despite what some might say, is too good for this, too good to slip into the flaccid self-awareness of someone convinced of the a priori superiority of anything he writes just because it comes from him. Would it have been such a terrible thing to toss this entire novel into the recycle bin, and get to work on something a little fresher?
Talent carries with it responsibility. Not just in ``Bright Lights'' but in the lost-young-man- in-Japan-novel ``Ransom,'' written earlier and published later, McInerney announced himself as a talent to watch. Let's hope this lazy wink-in-the-mirror-of-a-novel, with its yeah- you've-really-got-it grin, amounts to a literary midlife crisis, and that we can look forward to whole new phase of McInerney's writing life.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi...
This article appeared on page RV - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle
November 8, 2017
All in all, a pretty pissy read — or, in my case, a listen. I'm making my way through literature's most notable Thanksgiving novels in audiobook form, and this one features a holiday dinner at the St. Regis that includes both the discussion of a detached penis and the exposure of an attached one. I reviewed Model Behavior for The Tangential.
June 10, 2019
This novel started as a solid 2 stars but by the end redeemed itself enough to warrant 3 stars for me. The problem, especially in the beginning is that so little happens, everything seems so empty and meaningless and it feels hard to care for the characters. Perhaps this is purposefully done to reflect the vacuous model/ acting world. Anyway, it makes it difficult to care for the story initially, despite occasionally funny and sharp dialogue. It gets better towards the end, but marginally.
July 30, 2022
If you are a fan of McInerney’s prose and wit you will find comfort in the familiarity of this novel. Regarded as the least desirable of his works, there are still a lot of things to like about this book. If you’re expecting a ground breaking novel you won’t find it here, but if you take solace in reading about individuals spiraling out of control you’ve come to the right place. Don’t take it too seriously and you’ll find this easy read will have you smiling constantly.
January 9, 2024
Don't actually remember reading it, but I know I did. Approx 2010 I guess but could be 5 years before or after that. I think I read it around the same time as Jesus's Son & The Pugilist At Rest. I don't remember liking it but don't remember hating it either, so I'll give it 3/5.
Sorry, best I can do.
Sorry, best I can do.
June 17, 2019
As vacuous and self-absorbed as its 'plot line' and characters. And worse still, I remembered about 75% of the way through that I'd read it before -testament to how memorable it is :-) I loved 'Brightness Falls' but this baby is definitely a turkey IMHO...
February 6, 2022
3.5
MEN, am I right? I actually really enjoyed this. Could relate to parts of it more than I care to admit, probably because I'm also an annoying journalist. An easy to read but layered satire. What a chaotic ending though.
MEN, am I right? I actually really enjoyed this. Could relate to parts of it more than I care to admit, probably because I'm also an annoying journalist. An easy to read but layered satire. What a chaotic ending though.
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