- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Vintage (Mar 14 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0679749535
- ISBN-13: 978-0679749530
- Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 1.1 x 20.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 222 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #468,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Readers familiar with Jay McInerney's Bright Lights Big City may feel a sense of déjà vu when reading Model Behavior. Once again our hero is a small cog in the glamorous Manhattan media machine. Yet although the players may look the same, the rules of the game have changed--their ambitions and expectations are not the same as they were a decade or more ago. Connor McKnight is not brought low by drugs and other symbols of 1980s-style excess; instead, his relationship is destroyed by premillennial ennui and the numbing effects of his career as a celebrity journalist (celebrity being to the '90s what cocaine was to the '80s). The fact that all these shiny happy people really aren't happy at all is hardly news, but McInerney is both a chronicler and a satirist of this glitzy corner of the world, and his astute wit saves the novel from being as shallow as its subjects. This is not poisonous satire à la Martin Amis but a more affectionate (yet equally effective) mocking of modern pretensions, such as P.G. Wodehouse in Hugo Boss. McInerney's comic timing is best demonstrated in one of the longest scenes, a Thanksgiving dinner that ends in chaos when Connor's father exposes himself to the turkey-munching patrons of a tony Manhattan eatery. While the author's sixth book may not be very far removed from his first, that isn't necessarily a criticism. Like a botanist who studies only pondweed, McInerney has narrowed his focus to perfect it. Model Behavior, and the seven stories collected with it, demonstrate that no one else can render this peculiar little social set as accurately, or as artfully as McInerney. --Simon Leake
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
The protagonists of these witty stories tend to be outsiders, never quite at home in their seemingly glamorous milieus: a young New York movie reviewer who hopes to sell screenplays in Hollywood; a famous actor who visits his wife at a mental institution; an aspiring writer who becomes a crackhead and lives among Manhattan's transvestite hookers. Connor McKnight, the hero of the first-person novel from which the collection takes its title, is no exception to this rule. He abandons his study of Zen and Japanese literature to write for a celebrity magazine in Manhattan and live with a model. At the same time, his best friend, Jeremy Green, a brooding, self-consciously Jewish short-story writer, becomes an unwilling socialite and fears jeopardizing his artistic reputation. Always scrupulous in demonstrating the comparative in-ness of his out-crowd, McInerney impresses here with his trenchant humor and keen eye for detail, as he vengefully skewers the New York literary scene and other, equally unforgiving cliques. (In a typical exchange, Jeremy asks whether Christopher Lehmann-Haupt is Jewish, then complains, "What's-her-fucking-name hates everybody except Anne fucking Tyler and Amy fucking Tan. I don't stand a chance. Wrong initials, wrong sex.") Although the novel ends abruptly and the seven stories, which span McInerny's career, seem tacked on, there is no question but that the aging 1980s wunderkind follows the scene of his early glory (Bright Lights, Big City) with a more savage, jaundiced eye. Say what you will, McInerny has few peers in chronicling a certain segment of contemporary society that he loves and hates at the same time.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Model Behavior, model storytelling.,
By
This review is from: Model Behavior: A Novel (Paperback)
I picked up McInerney's book on the remainders table at Barnes & Noble for a modest price. Little did I know I would be purchasing a rarity in current fiction: A very good and readable book. I literally had trouble putting it down and I never have that problem. 'Model' follows the exploits of Connor McKnight, an emotionally stunted alcoholic with an anorexic sister fixated on third-world suffering, a model girlfriend who may or may not have left him and a crappy job at a fashion mag he hates. Throw into the mix a brooding writer-best friend with a huge chip on his shoulder, a Chip with a huge ego, a stripper/wannabe-actress/train wreck love interest/unattainable goal named Pallas and many other, well conceived and executed characters and what you get is a very convincing voyeuristic view of a down-and-out man that is searching for something no one can seem to find, let alone the writer's protagonist. Did I fail to mention the ongoing Japanese cultural lessons throughout the work? Or the kidnapped and ransomed pet dog? What about the acidic, plastic she-demon boss? No? Well, you'll just have to buy the book and find out for yourself because Model Behavior is a real treat to read and no review could do the mix-mash of personalities and situations justice. McInerney is a very witty writer with a penchant for poking fun at the person you can expect him to be in real life, which makes the reading even more pleasurable. The book has a weird flow that at first is distracting, but works well once one gets used to the pacing. Please, do consider this book. It will have you laughing, commiserating and wishing it would have been a couple hundred pages longer.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clever Storytelling!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Model Behavior: A Novel (Paperback)
I picked up the book to read on a flight to New York. I didn't know anything about the author or the story, I just picked it based on it's cover. (Not this one, it has a plain white t-shirt on a hanger against a blue background) By the end of the flight I had finished it! I love this book! McInerney tells you a story of a writer named Connor McKnight, the relationships between his friends and his former girlfriend who leaves him by telling him she's going on a shoot. Yup! A relationship with a model. A writer and a model, how clique right! It's more than you think. While telling you his story you come to realize how sad and completely empty this man is. But only by choice. He is surrounded by friends who trust him and love him but he still pins for his ex-girlfriend Philomena. McInerney's writing is exceptionally charming because the way he describes events and emotions include every detail of the situations. A book by one of his writer friends Jeremy Green, 'Walled In', even tells their story, Jeremy and Connor's combined. Their story inside the narration. A delightful coincidence! Also recommended: THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez
4.0 out of 5 stars
short stories are better than novella,
By
This review is from: Model Behavior: A Novel (Paperback)
If you like the style of McInerney, then I wouldn't discourage anyone from buying the paperback or a used version of this book. I would just skip the title and read the short stories. Some of them are up there with Carver!-Borden Burns
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