Model Behavior

A Novel

By: Jay McInerney

Narrated by: Richard Cox

Connor McKnight, former acolyte of film, Zen, and Japanese literature, is not unaware that these avocations are wildly different from his present occupation as a fledgling celebrity journalist. Meanwhile, his longtime girlfriend, the fashion model Philomena, seems curiously remote and soon decamps for the West Coast. Then there's the sister with whom he shared a flamboyantly addled childhood and his best friend, a monkishly neurotic and militantly vegetarian writer. Connor' s anxieties can scarcely be assuaged by his trio of flirting obsessions—a gorgeous stripper, a screenplay in progress, and the nature of a meaningful future. With the holidays fast approaching—and a female admirer stalking him by email—Connor gropes his hapless, hilarious way toward not so much salvation as self-preservation.

©1998 Jay McInerney (P)1998 Phoenix Books, Inc.

Critic reviews

"What makes McInerney so likable is the ingenuousness behind his cynicism. Even as he so wittily mocks the absurdity of the glamour industry, he is still enamored of the dreams it sells." (Booklist)

"Swift and amusing. . . . An astute social observer of the cruelties of modern New York, [McInerney] is also capable of great tenderness." (The Boston Globe)

"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)

Disappointed McInerney fan

I like McInerney so much that I sometimes pick up some long-ago read novels and just start reading for the pleasure of being with the characters and places again. But, after more than an hour I can't get interested in the protagonist, or his friends, or his girlfriend or their presumably looming conflicts.

It could be that the narrator's slowness and his louche cynicism is a big part of the problem. I might enjoy this more in print. THANK YOU Audible, for your return policy!