You’ve heard of this book before because it’s the name of some Michael J. Fox movie from the eighties. Okay, you’ll give it a try- and anyway, it doesn’t look very long, so even if it’s not so great, at least you won’t have wasted too much time.

Bright Lights. Big City is about a young yuppie-ish man going through his own state of hell in New York City in the eighties- you are not surprised when every character in the book is always up for drinking more or doing lines of “Bolivian Marching Powder”. This is definitely not a good read for children (under 18) or anyone with a closed mind, although it’s not overbearing and might actually serve as a good eye-opener.

You can relate to the main character, who remains nameless in the book’s entirety. McInerny’s style is so fluid and punchy. Even without having gone through the exact experiences of the main character, you are given so much insight into his thought processes, relating is not a difficult task. You feel his falling deeper into hell, into insanity. His wife recently left him, he can’t afford their apartment they shared, he’s about to lose his job and he tries to fill all those voids behind nightclub restroom doors.

This book has significant meaning in a world that seems to have less and less meaning. Think Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho Sylvia Plath’s Bell Jar some great comic moments to balance it all out and you’ve got yourself one great story.

You actually were required to read this book in your freshman year of college. It was an English 101 class, but the professor decided to choose "hell" as his theme for the semester. You also read Dante's Inferno, Milton's Paradise Lost and Shakespeare's Hamelt in this course. All of these books, classics, of course, had some type of hell as their theme. Bright Lights however is much more subtle, but if you read carefully, you will see the downward spiral that is beautifully depicted here. You found this book to be the modern version of hell, with drugs, loss, death constantly playing on your mind. It may sound depressing, but it's much more profound than that.

So next time you’re at the library or bookstore, pick up a copy and spend a few hours reading about “your life”. Bring some Kleenex too- you might need it.


Recommended: Yes