Opening Shots: Bright Lights, Big City

You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head.

Bright Lights, Big City
By Jay McInerney
(Vintage, 1984)

I read this one in high school--maybe it was 1987 or early 1988. I wanted to work at a magazine very, very badly after finishing it. And lo! I ended up working as a fact-checker, just like the protagonist. Which goes to show you that high school students shouldn't read contemporary lit; it fucks you up for life. One other thing: in the copy I bought, McInerney's author photo was blurred on the right side, which made me think he had some kind of horrible, Harvey Dent-esque facial deformity.