In August, it became national news that there was a Jay McInerney novel that I had somehow overlooked. I thought I had McInerney covered — I even read his winefesto Hedonist in the Cellar for the love of God — and here was a novel-novel, probably set in New York City in the ’80s, probably filled with a cast of coke fiend scenesters, and probably something I should have read years ago.Story of my Life is written from the perspective of 20-year-old Alison Poole, a party girl and aspiring actress. She is a slightly nasally uptalker, who drops a lot of “like” and “rights?” and “and then he goes, so I go …” into the running monologue that is this story.Like the other women in her girl posse, Alison has grown accustomed to a certain father-financed lifestyle, but lately his check-writing trigger finger has slowed. She gets resourceful, in one scene pinching smarmy ex-fling Skip Pendleton for $1,000 cash to abort a fictitious pregnancy, then using the money for tuition.This is truly the See Dick Run novel of the McInerney collection: A 3-hour read with every word filtered through Alison’s voice: Cocaine, money grubbing, ass-grabbing, method acting and parties that end in naked “truth or dare” games where Alison has slept with most of the men in the circle and the truths result in hurt feelings. The story is simple and spans one naval-gazing month.Alison is at that contradictory — yet not at all complex — stage: She understands it isn’t healthy to rely on her father for money, but blames him for raising her so that she expects this treatment. More than anything, she hates lies, but sometimes relies on omission. When she can’t reach her new boyfriend Dean on the phone, she correctly assumes the worst and sets out to one-up him. She loathes Skip Pendleton, but is drawn into his smug and evil vortex. When Alison comes home to find her sister and roommate all hopped up on whatever, she wonders if she sounds like such an idiot when she is messed up. Alison claims that she has slept with a lot of men, but she’s not exactly slutty. She passes off the phone number for an escort service as her own. Alison agrees to meet up with a man, and sends him to a dark tenement building that is at least a $20 cab ride from his home — and , of course, does not show up.While Alison is flawed and irresponsible, she is written in an endearing way. She used to ride horses! Her greatest love is acting! And she is funny:“I don’t know, these downtown artsy coifs may get attention, but not necessarily the right kind. I don’t think most guys are too keen on running their fingers through a fashion statement.”“So Chuck’s with some girl he must have met in Las Vegas, although she’s actually from Texas, even her lips look like they’ve got silicone implants. Her name’s Tina, but she tells me her friends call her Teeny, and she kind of looks at her chest when she says this and jiggles her tits and that pretty much tells you more than you’d ever want to know about her.”This is not the great McInerney novel. But he really nails Alison Poole’s voice and the confusion and competitiveness of being a 20 year old who hangs out with other 20 year olds. Those pensive “Who Am I” moments that are interrupted by a craving for Mexican food.
So, in reading about the John Edwards scandal, I came across the information that Jay McInerney based his novel "Story of My Life" on his former girlfriend (and, it appears, Edward's former girlfriend) Rielle Hunter. I hadn't thought of this book in years, but I suddenly remembered that I gave a presentation on "Story of My Life" to a roomful of Hungarians when I first joined the Peace Corps in 1990. As part of our training in Pecs, we were expected to give presentations to the public -- good preparation, I guess, seeing we were all going to be teachers, and giving presentations became a regular activity. Why on earth did I talk about Story of My Life? It's not a great book. I must have thought it said something about America, and about my life as a young American woman. Our presentations were on weekday afternoons, but were still well attended -- Americans were rare and exotic in Hungary in 1990. My speech got kind reviews from my fellow Volunteers, though they told me I talked too fast. About the book -- as I recall, the main character is a party girl, quite cosmopolitan, rather plaintive, who goes to lots of hot nightspots and has some sort of catharsis and probably resolves to live a better life though luckily the book ends then as the reason to read it is to vicariously go to those nightspots. Rielle Hunter must have been quite a looker when she was younger. Other books from that summer -- Love in the Time of Cholera (newly published) and the short stories of Somerset Maugham, which I found in a local bookstore. You'd think, if I needed to give a speech about a book, that Garcia Marquez would have been the way to go. Oh, and by the way, the title is "Story of My Life." No "the." The narrator ends lots of chapters that way, when she details something that just went wrong. You're supposed to imagine it being said in a world-weary tone.
What do You think about Story Of My Life (1999)?
Little did I know that a year after I read the followup to McInerney's excellent Bright Lights, Big City I would discover that the inspiration for Alison Poole -- who had also formerly been McInerney's girlfriend -- had, in real life, worked her way up to an extramarital affair with a 2008 presidential candidate!I am going to place my money on this just being a polished "stenography" job as McInerney followed around Rielle Hunter as she went about her daily life. What should have just been dismissed as McInerney's sophomore slump effort in 1988 gets new life breathed into it by scandals 20 years later. We may consider Alison/Rielle vapid, trite, and opportunistic, but people like her are real and they have powerful connections. A retrospectively alarming read.
—Bryan Rountree
This was a fun read when I did read it (long before I decided to go to graduate school and learned how to pay better attention to things like plot, pace, voice).I actually went to a reading when this book first came out and when he signed my book I felt the need to correct him on the Life magazine photo that's mentioned in the book (she's face-up, not face-down; makes all the difference). I don't think I've ever done that to any other author since but I was a 23-year-old nerd and this was IMPORTANT to me. Story of my life. (There's no the in the title, Goodreads folks.)
—Kecia
The back cover compares Jay McInerney's Alison Poole to Truman Capote's Holly Golightly. I can see the similarites, but I think McInerney's novel is better because he was able to do with words what only Hollywood was able to do to Capote's work - make an unlikeable character likeable. At the end of 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' you want to kick Holly's butt (at least I did), but at the end of 'Story of My Life' you wish that there was a phone number you could call to ask if Alison is alright. Alison is funny, cool, smart and in a twisted way, admireable. The ending wasn't what I wanted it to be, but this book is a keeper.
—Sharon
