Author Bio
• Birth—January 13, 1955
• Where—Hartford, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Williams College; M.A. Syracuse University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
John Barrett "Jay" McInerney, Jr., is an American novelist, whose 1984 debut novel Bright Lights, Big City, placed him in the literary spotlight as a young author to watch. Since then, McInerney has published numerous other novels, two short story collections, and three collections of essays on wine.
McInerney was born in 1955 in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Marilyn Jean (Murphy) and John Barrett McInerney, Sr., a corporate executive. He graduated from Williams College in 1976 and earned an M.A. in English Writing from Syracuse University, where he studied with Raymond Carver.
After working as a fact-checker at The New Yorker, McInerney achieved fame in 1984 with his first published novel, Bright Lights, Big City, a depiction of New York City's cocaine culture. The novel, whose title is from a 1961 Jimmy Reed blues song, was thought unique for its second-person narrative. After its release, McInerney was heralded, along with Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz, as one of the new faces of literature: young, iconoclastic and fresh. A 1987 Village Voice article dubbed the trio—McInerney, Easton, and Janowitz—the Literary Brat Pack (the group was sometimes expanded to include Donna Tartt and Susan Minot.)
Fiction
1984 - Bright Lights, Big City
1985 - Ransom
1988 - Story of My Life
1992 - Brightness Falls
1997 - The Last of the Savages
1998 - Model Behavior
2006 - The Good Life
2009 - How It Ended (short story collection)
2009 - The Last Bachelor (short story collection)
2016 - Bright, Precious Days
McInerney also wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film version of Bright Lights, Big City and co-wrote the screenplay for the television film Gia, which starred Angelina Jolie. He has been a wine columnist for both House & Garden and The Wall Street Journal, and his essays on wine have been collected in Bacchus & Me (2000), A Hedonist in the Cellar (2006), and Juice (2012).
Trading places
Bret Easton Ellis used McInerney's character Alison Poole, from Story of My Life, in two of his novels—American Psycho and Glamorama. Poole's character, which McInerney has described as "cocaine addled" and "sexually voracious," was based upon a former girlfriend, Rielle Hunter, then known as Lisa Druck. Story of My Life offers a prescient glimpse into the notorious horse murders scandal, which became known only in 1992, when Sports Illustrated published a confession from the man who had murdered Lisa Druck's horse at the request of her father, who wanted to claim the insurance.
McInerney also has a cameo role in Ellis's Lunar Park, attending the Halloween party Bret hosts at his house. Apparently, however, McInerney was displeased with how he was portrayed in the novel.
Personal
Ellis has been married four times. His first wife was fashion model Linda Rossiter. His second wife was writer Merry Reymond. For four years he lived with fashion model Marla Hanson. His third marriage to Helen Bransford, with whom he had fraternal twin children, John Barrett McInerney III and Maisie Bransford McInerney, lasted nine years. In 2006, he married Anne Hearst. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/17/2016.)