For a quarter-century now, Jay McInerney has been telling fundamentally the same story: Innocent newcomer to the neon jungle gains the world -- or at least a book contract, a bespoke suit and a gorgeous girlfriend -- only to lose his soul. "How It Ended" presents a dozen amusing but ultimately self-indulgent variations on that theme. The short story is perhaps not the best display case for McInerney's gifts. His characters need narrative time for their world-weary carapaces to crack, revealing hidden depths and vulnerabilities; in the shorter format, their sardonic defense mechanisms come across as shallow and bitchy. (From the WASHINGTON POST, July 8, 2009) ( )

A terrific collection of short stories by a real master of the form. It's a bit of a history lesson/writing lesson - you get to see the stories that would later become [b:Bright Lights Big City|86147|Bright Lights, Big City|Jay McInerney|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223018233s/86147.jpg|144128] and [b:Story Of My Life|821611|The Story of My Life (Bantam Classic)|Helen Keller|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178681160s/821611.jpg|1602613] - but it's also just a lesson in the form. His preface talks about the form of short stories and he just nails it, even with the stories that are more dead weight that interesting.

There are only a few of those dead weight stories, you'll be happy to know, and most of them are absolutely brilliant. I'm not sure I can recall another short story collection where I felt entirely satisfied at the end of each story.

Plus, did you know that Alison Poole = Rielle Hunter? I KNOW, right?!

Anyway, an excellent collection for an early autumn weekend. I ramble on more about it, at some length, at Raging Biblioholism: http://wp.me/pGVzJ-h7 ( )

This is my first exposure to Jay McInerney, and I was pleasantly surprised at the variety in this collection of stories. So often collected stories tend to be the same thing over and over, but McInerney did a great job with presenting relationship stories without all of them sounding the same. There was plenty of sex, drugs and funky behavior. I was surprised at how well he used women's POV.

Ray Porter's narration is amazing!! He actually has more than one voice for women! And his men sounded different without using accents. I will definitely be looking for more of his work. ( )

OK, so here's one of my guilty literary pleasures. I absolutely love me some Jay McInerney. I adore the guy and his writing, and have for quite some time. But here's the thing about me and McInerney: as much as I hate to admit it, I've come to the conclusion that I can only take him in smallish doses, and How It Ended: New and Collected Stories confirms that theory. This is not a collection of stories that is meant to be read straight through, as I did over the New Years weekend. (Especially over such a weekend made for debauchery such as New Years.)

By page 110 or so of this collection of stories, I felt like I needed to check myself into the likes of the Betty Ford Clinic because I was feeling in needed of a detox. The coke! The parties! The beautiful people! The affairs! New York! It's all here, and it's the stuff that Jay McInerney's stories are made of (and why I love him so).

Escaping into a McInerney book is like spending an evening in the company of that friend of yours who is living la vida loca - you know, the one who goes to all the great concerts and all the cool parties, the One Who Has A Life while you're in your PJs by 7 p.m. It's fun, in a way, to live vicariously through such people, which again, is why these stories are good but just not read back to back.

The characters in these stories are, for the most part, gorgeous and rich and incredibly lonely and sad. They're adulterers. They're living in the aftermath of the 80s and 9/11. Several make re-appearances from their starring roles in other McInerney novels (notably, Russell and Corrine Calloway from Brightness Falls and Alison from Story of My Life).

How It Ended is comprised of 26 stories. In my opinion, among the best are:

"The Madonna of Turkey Season" about a family struggling to celebrate the holidays each year after the passing of their mother;
"Sleeping with Pigs", a brilliant story about a woman's fetish for sleeping with a pig and how that is connected with her grieving her deceased brother;
"My Public Service," about an idealistic staffer on a political campaign who quickly becomes jaded;
"The Queen and I," about the enduring spirit of friendship over family;
"Con Doctor," about a doctor in a prison who can't come to terms with his own past;
"I Love You, Honey," about the lengths one will go for revenge and possessiveness, and
"Getting in Touch with Lonnie," where a celebrity gets a surprise when visiting his wife in a rehab clinic.
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I have lost count of the number of times I have purchased The New Yorker in airports with the idea that, this time, I will enjoy it. And time after time I face disappointment. Similarly, I keep trying to read The Best American Short Stories and, time after time, I am bitterly disappointed. What I find in these stories (stories I have begun calling, in a derogatory manner, “New Yorker” stories) Is a tail that covers a person’s life or a year in a person’s life or a month in a person’s life or a week in a person’s life or a day in a person’s life or some snatch of time in a person’s life and, at the end of these stories, the author uses a line or a paragraph or a page to be profound. And, at the end of these stories, I sit back and say, “So what?” Nothing has happened, nothing has changed, nothing makes me care. The authors are skilled. But there is nothing more there than a slice of life about which I just can’t care.

This is a collection of those stories. That McInerney has writing skills is not the question. Can he make me care about anyone he writes about or care about the stories being told? That is the question. Can he make me care that I spent the time to read these stories? That he can do – I care that I used up my time.

I will not go into the stories – even to point out what didn’t or (very rarely) did work. I look through the table of contents and can barely remember them. I can only say what I have said before. I read them, and there is little else to be said

These are stories that are obviously to the taste of others, just as The New Yorker and Best American Short Stories are to the tastes of others; others who seem to have a great degree of clout and who must have more refined tastes than I.

But I will not pick up another New Yorker, I will not pick up another Best American Short Stories, and I will not pick up anything else written by Jay McInerney. ( )