How It Ended was borrowed from the library on a whim. Just what I needed, turns out: finely crafted vistas into/guided travelogues through the prep life/habitat, circa the early 80s to now, or yesterday, anyway. In the intro Jay discusses the differences between studying under Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver; their examples rubbed off, as these short-stories are well-rounded, sharp, memorable. A surprise? Sure. Bright Lights, Big City remains a revelation, but Model Behavior missed the mark by several miles and in the blinding light cast by pal Bret Easton Ellis' Glamorama around the same time it registered as dim, as McInerney fast-food as McInerney lite. But the dude is a monster short-story writer, the kind of scribe Robert Bingham aspired to be before he checked out, chucked it all away. But that's another story. A
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