#3. Bright Lights, Big City

This book was a quick read: a few hours, tops. Remarkable in parts, laugh out loud funny in others, and then… strangely haunting. Even now I am trying to shake the fog of the main character’s thoughts from my head. You see, the book is written almost entirely in second-person, so you find yourself identifying with the young man almost against your own will.

He first enters New York the way most of us did/ do: with dreams as big, as tall, and as majestic as the city’s skyscrapers. He has a beautiful model (catwalk) wife on his arm, and a job at a famous magazine that many would kill for. He is happy.

And then his wife leaves him via collect-call from Paris.

We watch his descent from the lights into a spiraling darkness. There is temporary relief in cocaine, in alcohol, and an endless string of parties. But there are consequences. Eventually he must come to terms with his loss.

This is a story told with the cynical humor of one who is simply telling the truth. It is affecting. I think it is safe to say that anyone reading this book would finds parts in the young man’s experience to identify with.

A good read. I’d rate it two and a half stars.

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