Good Life

'A shrewd, acidic portrait of literary life in Manhattan at the turn of this already frightful century' - Guardian'A beautiful, affecting novel, one of the best yet inspired by 9/11' - Sunday Telegraph'Engrossing from start to finish, this compassionate novel depicts a very human response to tragedy' - Mail on SundayJay McInerney's classic novel of New York in the shadow of 9/11 tells a story of love, family and conflicting desiresTen years on from Brightness Falls, Russell Calloway is still a literary editor; his wife Corrine has sacrificed her career to watch anxiously over their children. Across town Luke McGavock, a wealthy ex-investment banker, is taking a sabbatical from moneymaking, struggling to reconnect with his socially resplendent wife Sasha and their angst-ridden teenage daughter, Ashley. These two Manhattan families are teetering on the brink of change when 9/11 happens. Through the lens of catastrophe, The Good Life explores that territory between hope and despair, love and loss, regret and fulfilment. This is Jay McInerney doing what he does best, presenting us with life in New York City, in all its moral complexity.

‘This story is a simple one, but McInerney delivers it with grace and wit. He does what a good novelist should: he takes an abstract idea and gives it life', A shrewd, acidic portrait of literary life in Manhattan at the turn of this already frightful century, Engrossing from start to finish, this compassionate novel depicts a very human response to tragedy, McInerney’s most fully imagined novel as it is his most ambitious and elegiac, ‘The subject of The Good Life is the cataclysm of 9/11, and McInerney lays claim to it with the authority and conviction of a native master ... McInerney here joins a small number of dissident novelists, headed by Norman Mailer, who change the way we look at American history'

Jay McInerney came to prominence in 1984 with his first novel Bright Lights, Big City. He is the author of six further novels: Ransom, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls, The Last of the Savages, Model Behaviour and The Good Life, two short story collections, and two non-fiction books on wine, one of which was the acclaimed A Hedonist in the Cellar. He writes a wine column for the Wall Street Journal and is a regular contributor to the Guardian, the New York Times Book Review and Corriere della Sera. He lives in Manhattan and Bridgehampton, New York.