Vintage Contemporaries
2024 marks the fortieth anniversary since the publication of the novel Bright Lights, Big City. It was the first book by Jay McInerney, and probably to his chagrin, the one for which he is still known the most. If you know anything about it at all, you probably remember the novel’s signature reference to cocaine as “Bolivian Marching Powder,” in which the twenty-something male protagonist, in the middle of an emotional breakdown, indulges on a parade of mirrors and in nightclub bathrooms.