The 1988 novel Story of My Life by Jay McInerney, released in 1988, stars the acclaimed Alison Poole who is a twenty-year-old college girl living in New York City. Her life consists of drug-induced binges of the highest hedonism with friends who swap clothes with her as often as they meddle with each others’ partners (which is often). From Truth and Dare scenes where honesty is who in the room you want to have sex with and dares are of taking off your clothes for a quick gawking session, Alison spares no time to waste in giving herself the pleasure afforded to the beautiful and manipulative.
She lives this life while also trying to train for an acting career, going to college acting classes where her coach can somehow find the faults in every one of his pupils from their meager performances.
Things shake up for Alison once she meets stockbroker and Shakespeare devout, Dean, who she “falls in lust” with and for once in her life cannot shake the presence of him after their bed-time shenanigans unlike all the previous men she has been with.
That is the truth besides the exception of Alex, her ex-boyfriend who she has known for fifteen years since her childhood and who slightly returns in her life only to “fall in lust” with her roommate and friend, Jeanine, who cannot for the life of her rid herself from constantly trying to one up Alison at every chance she gets.
Her other friend, Didi, is a coke-aholic who cannot go five minutes without a quick line and another five days without changing her outfit, yet the men line up for her despite this and her ability to take over any room with narcissistic pleasure.
Rebecca, Alison’s sister, plays the men in New York even better, stealing their admiration at the same time as their credit cards on her way to endless shopping trips and vacations as they trail after her with marriage proposals in the days and weeks after her interest in them dies down quickly.
Alison and Dean start off as a fruitful and potentially significant relationship, something Alison would never have considered in her new life of shenanigans, just trying to stay afloat from her unrequited father and mother who are divorced. This is until Dean has an affair with at least one other woman, which takes Alison for a spin to shame him for a few favors, yet she is committed to the idea that if anyone wants something, who is to say they can’t have it?
However, Alison falls for this type of behavior as well, having her own affair with an ex-lover named Skip who is as arrogant as his constant successes will bring him.
Dean is a sympathetic at heart, yet also willing to lie in order to make Alison happy, and this behavior that may just tear them apart.
The story has a loose and background string of attention towards Alison’s younger years where she rode horses. Although that was until her price winner mysteriously died in an event that scarred her to never ride again.
Her father’s neglect and constant distance may just have been what has taken Alison down this path of decadence and eventual depression. Her two sisters and mother also seem to show little embrace for her plight.
Overall, this novel is a fast-paced and hysterical journey of a woman simply trying to distract herself from the chaotic and brutalizing world around her in New York City. I am amazed that there is so little publicity or content reviewing this novel in articles or on YouTube. It seems to be outshined by McInerey’s Bright Lights, Big City, released in 1984. I personally loved the chaotic, provocative, and slippery plot of this novel. I never found myself bored. However, I do wish that some of the characters were a little more fleshed out. I found myself jumbling the personalities by a few of Alison’s friends and it was hard to put a specific face/body to any of them beside’s Alison and Dean. I understand that that level of description would have been disjointed from the style of the novel, but it’s a flaw that I still feel content with. This novel also includes no quotation marks for dialogue which struck me hard at first, but soon felt like a unique way of telling a story, keeping it smooth and quick with its punches.
This is only a 200 page novel, and can easily be finished within a weekend, while the ending of it will keep you wondering for more for days to come. If that’s the case, make sure to check out Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho and Glamorama which hilariously incorporate McInerney’s doomed heroine in a few slight jabs against his contemporary.
Rate: 7/10