Model Behavior

"A Great Gatsby for the end of the century."--The Baltimore Sun "Swift and amusing. . . . An astute social observer of the cruelties of modern New York, [McInerney] is also capable of great tenderness." --The Boston Globe Jay McInerney returns to the restless urban landscape of Manhattan and offers us a glimpse of a devotee of the city whose faith is severely tested. Connor McKnight's ennui is fast turning into anxiety as he struggles to keep his life intact. He has temporarily shelved his Akira Kurosawa biography in pursuit of an interview with elusive young actor Chip Ralston to secure his job at CiaoBella! magazine. Connor's model girlfriend has left him, and his brilliant sister is wasting away in anorexic seclusion. Ridden with angst and heartache, Connor can't even turn to his best friend, a brooding fiction writer who has balanced his sanity on the publication of a new story collection and the return of his Irish terrier. He is left to seek refuge in a vodka bottle, and consolation from a beautiful stripper at an upscale topless club, only to find that nothing can protect him from the harrowing fate that unfolds before his bleary eyes. Together with seven stories that "remind one of . . . Fitzgerald and Hemingway" (The New York Times Book Review), Model Behavior once again demonstrates McInerney's keen wit, deft portraiture, and lively skill with language. "The careful observation of that downward spiral [is] brightened by McInerney's facility with the bon mot and his fondness for skewering the pretensions of the nouveau hip." --The Miami Herald "Very funny, and full of the rakish, old-fashioned literary elegance that McInerney always manages to mix into the slangy idioms of his characters." --The New York Review of Books