Jay McInerney - Bright, Precious Days

“Likewise. Are you going to the party? Maybe we could share a cab? I work at HBO, but I have a script I’d love to tell you about.”

Michael’s visibly stricken by this revelation. But he’s a big boy who will have to take care of himself, and Corrine is grateful to be rid of her sister, who is towing him toward the exit.

“Corrine, this is Astrid Kladstrup,” Russell is saying, presenting this voluptuous Betty Boop babe with a bobbed do, cartoon lips and a vintage dress. “Astrid’s at least partly responsible for the whole Jeff Pierce revival — she curates that Web site.”

“It’s so amazing to meet you,” the girl says as Corrine looks her over, then glances back at Russell, suddenly wondering if it’s possible, and indeed he seems a little flustered. “I thought the movie was great,” she continues, “although I was sorry it wasn’t faithful to the drug overdose. But I suppose there was no way that was going to fly.”

The publicist has slipped behind them and is urging them forward toward the exit.

“You still weepy?” Russell asks, putting his arm around her.

“I’m fine,” she says, her voice catching in her throat.

“Well, let’s join Wash and Veronica, who’ve been waiting patiently to pay homage.”

She remembers then that they’re a couple; that she is, in addition to being a lover and a mother, half of this unit: Russell & Corrine.

She exchanges kisses with the Lees, and together they walk out into the anteroom, redolent of popcorn, which is glowing yellow in the glass case of the bright red machine.

They collect their coats, share the elevator down to the lobby and walk out into the cold.

“If we still lived here, we’d be home now,” Russell says, looking down West Broadway. They live a hundred and forty blocks north now, in Harlem.

“What was that expression of yours?” Corrine says. “ ‘If wishes were Porsches, beggars would drive’?”

“A clever refashioning of the old adage, I think.”

“I think we’ll all be a whole lot cleverer after a cocktail or two,” Washington says, flagging a cab.

“It’s only a few blocks,” Corrine tells him. “You guys go ahead. We’re going to walk.” Russell gives her a quizzical look before nodding — one of those tiny empathetic exchanges of which a marriage of long duration is compounded. Corrine was ready to jump in the cab, but she realizes now that she wants more than anything to walk, and she takes Russell’s hand. It’s an important night and she intends to savor it.

Such moments are too often lost, the private interludes between the tribal gatherings, the transit between destinations, when the city becomes an intimate landscape, a secret shared by two. This was once their neighborhood and she wants to reclaim it for a little while, to walk past the apartment where they spent so much of their lives, even if it makes her sad thinking of all that transpired there, and all that’s lost. It makes her melancholy to imagine that she might never be here again, that these blocks, their former haunts, and their old building will outlast them; that the city is supremely indifferent to their transit through its arteries, and to their ultimate destination. For now, she wants just to be in between. She knows that later it won’t be the party she will remember so much as this, the walk with her husband in the crisp autumn air, bathed in the yellow metropolitan light spilling from thousands of windows, this suspended moment of anticipation before arrival.

I’m very grateful to Alexandra Pringle, Elizabeth Robinson and Donna Tartt for reading early drafts of the novel and making valuable suggestions. Binky Urban read every draft and was, as always, incredibly helpful and supportive. Gary Fisketjon read the book with his usual close, critical and sympathetic scrutiny and this novel is all the better for it. Ruthie Reisner made the system at Knopf work for us. Thanks to Chip Kidd for another killer book jacket design. I’d also like to thank Lydia Buechler for her sharp eye, Carol Edwards for her sensitive copyediting and Kathleen Fridella for turning the manuscript into a book. Beverly Burris, my much-missed assistant, performed dozens of research and fact-checking missions, great and small. I’d also like to thank Ben Frischer, who did the initial research for the novel. Special thanks to Morgan Entrekin, coach of the Art & Love team. And finally I want to thank my wife, Anne, for her encouragement and support.

Jay McInerney is the author of seven previous novels, a collection of short stories, and three collections of essays on wine. He lives in New York City and Bridgehampton, New York.

Bright, Precious Days by Jay McInerney

The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group’s conversation about Bright, Precious Days , Jay McInerney’s vibrant and immersive novel about post-9/11 New York, and a circle of friends and acquaintances whose lives intersect at the crossroads of great social and political change.

Discussion Questions

1. Describe the early courtship of Russell and Corrine Calloway. How would you characterize their relationship? How do their personalities shift or change over the course of the novel? What aspect of their marriage is strongest?

2. Marital fidelity, or lack thereof, is central to the plotting in Bright, Precious Days . As the number of affairs mounted throughout the book, how did they shape or complicate your understanding of each character? Which liaison surprised you the most? Consider the letter that Jeff wrote to Corrine, in which courtly love is explored. What does McInerney seem to suggest about the functionality of monogamy?

3. Jeff is introduced to the reader, strikingly, in the present tense. How is his presence felt throughout the book? How would you describe him, based on Russell’s account? Corrine’s? What did his personal letters reveal?

4. Describe the editorial relationship that Russell has with his authors. What is his main objective as an editor? Discuss the idea of ownership in relation to literature that has been touched by an editor’s pen. What does Jack’s letter to Russell imply about Russell’s editorial style?

5. Discuss how New York City functions as a character in Bright, Precious Days . What assertions can be made about New York pre- and post-9/11? What is “authentic” New York? How do Russell’s ideas about what it means to be a New Yorker frustrate Corrine?

6. The scene in which Hilary reveals that she is the biological mother of Russell and Corrine’s children sends shock waves that emanate throughout the novel. What scares Corrine most about her children knowing this information? How would you describe her as a parent?

7. Discuss the role of food and consumption in Bright, Precious Days . How is Russell’s interest in food and culinary culture described over the course of the novel? Why does their daughter’s interest in cooking alarm Corrine? How does class factor into body image concerns in their social circle?

8. Compare the dinner party in chapter 31 with the dinner party where Jack first becomes acquainted with the Calloways. How has his perspective about the Calloway family changed during this time? How has his understanding of New York and its literary scene shifted?

9. Discuss Corrine and Russell’s TriBeCa living situation. Why is Russell so adamant about buying property? What appeals to Corrine about Harlem? How does their struggle to find an affordable neighborhood reflect the tides of gentrification inherent in the rise of urban populaces?