Simon Baker
Grow Up
The Last Bachelor
By Jay McInerney
Bloomsbury 216pp £12.99
The title of this collection of short stories nods to The Last Tycoon (1941), F Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished, posthumously published novel. Like Fitzgerald, Jay McInerney has always written about the tragic allure of glamour and wealth, and the terrible acts that people are capable of when they see something they want. This volume is filled with writers, producers and bankers (many of whom have escaped to New York from provincial backgrounds) existing on a diet of parties, drugs and illicit trysts, and in each tale someone is causing pain to someone close.
Its key theme is miscommunication between couples. In almost every story the reader can see that the problems besetting the characters arise from words that are either held back or misunderstood. In ‘Invisible Fences’, a pair of suburban swingers live a life of apparently blissful hedonism but, underneath,
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
This and two more newly available pieces from our October 1984 issue in our From the Archives newsletter. Sign up on our website so you never miss another dispatch.
Congratulations to @HanKangOfficial, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2024.
We've lifted the paywall on Joanna Kavenna's review of The White Book from November 2017.
Joanna Kavenna - Carte Blanche
Joanna Kavenna: Carte Blanche - The White Book by Han Kang (Translated by Deborah Smith)
literaryreview.co.uk
Few surveys of British art exist. Those that do have given disproportionate space to recent trends and neglected the 150 years between Hogarth and Turner.
@robinsimonbaj examines what launched British artists of this era into the European stratosphere.
Robin Simon - The Wright Stuff
Robin Simon: The Wright Stuff - The Invention of British Art by Bendor Grosvenor
literaryreview.co.uk