Brightness Falls

May 4, 1992
The strengths of McInerney's ( Bright Lights, Big City ) writing are easily evident: his lithe, sly sentences coil around contemporanea (things, people, New York City) with adroit wit, rhythm and shrewdness. Yet his fourth novel, a well-plotted generational portrait of a cadre of once-sweet, young, driven friends in Manhattan whose hopes and chances of success seem to be fading as the '80s totter to a close, is perhaps too intent on getting this message across to fully convince on the level of character. Corinne and Russell Calloway, the novel's focus, are married and awhirl in the nether end of limitless aspirations (he's an ebullient rising editor at a publishing house that resembles a cross between Atlantic Monthly Press and Farrar, Straus & Giroux; she's a good-hearted stockbroker). Their familiars include Jeff Pierce, a writer and addict who almost self-destructs; Washington Lee, a cynical, swashbuckling black book editor; Victor Propp, the literary genius whose fame rests on the fact that he can't finish his magnum opus; and eddying extras on the margins--shantytown dwellers, Upper East Side epigones, Wall Street savants. McInerney snares them all in a satirical chronicle that has decidedly tender moments. Still, skillful, light-handed mockery tends to outweigh tenderness: there simply seems more cause for it--and it's so deftly done. BOMC and QPB alternates; first serial to Esquire.

The excesses and entitlements of the 1980s serve as the backdrop for this raucous 1992 novel about a pretentious New York couple, Russell and Corrine Calloway. Edoardo Ballerini depicts Calloway with a shade of swagger and self-centeredness as the publishing editor ruthlessly arranges a takeover bid of his own employer. Ballerini's portrayal of Corrine is fairly straightforward, while still capturing her despair over a miscarriage and her steely anger over her discovery of Russell's affair with his beautiful investment banker. The narrative is sprinkled with graceful turns of phrase amid the wild ride of sex, drugs, and power. Ballerini's timing allows the listener to savor all of them. N.M.C. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine