How It Ended

Reviews

“Proof that McInerney’s star burns as bright as ever.”

“The short story is the perfect measure for [McInerney’s] brand of beautifully distilled prose and dry sophistication.”

“Nobody can channel urban strivers and their shallow pursuits as well as McInerney.”

“A splendid short-story writer, [McInerney’s] stories are reminiscent of those of F. Scott Fitzgerald, John O’Hara, and Irwin Shaw…A very compelling collection.”

“Narrator Ray Porter blends sarcasm, wit, unfiltered emotion, and compassion to create a series of tales so realistic and believable they ring true from start to finish. McInerney’s knack for recreating the reality that surrounds us everyday is a perfect fit for Porter’s performance ability. Together they craft stories that reveal the underbelly of society while never failing to entertain.”

“Whether it was Edith Wharton at the turn of the 20^th century or John Cheever in the 1950s and ’60s, New York City has never lacked for chroniclers of its mores. Perhaps a century from now, cultural historians will plump the works of Jay McInerney to discern what life was like there in the two decades between the explosion of Wall Street wealth and the grim aftermath of 9/11. His keen-eyed depiction of that period is generously displayed in How it Ended…his dark depiction of a slice of modern American life that may be passing away in front of our eyes, as the title of this volume ironically suggests, is no less perceptive and real.”

“How It Ended reminds us how impressively broad McInerney’s scope has been and how confidently he has ranged across wide swaths of our national experience…McInerney’s contribution—and it is a major one—is to have revitalized the Irish Catholic expiatory tradition of F. Scott Fitzgerald and John O’Hara…McInerney’s gifts have never been in question. He possesses the literary naturalist’s full tool kit: empathy and curiosity, a peeled eye and a well-tuned ear, a talent for building narratives at once intimate and expansive, plausible and inventive.”

“[McInerney’s] stories have grown more elegant, subtle, shapely and reflective over time, to the point where some of the recent works are perfect specimens.”

“[McInerney] has the storyteller’s gift of making the familiar seem strange, of casting new light on old ground. The results are funny, shocking, and moving.”

“[McInerney’s] best writing to date, combining a quiet household realism with his gift for pinpointing moments of awkward bafflement.”

“Despite the sexual mayhem in McInerney’s stories, a stubborn moral reckoning hovers over the writing…[His] openings hook and reel in the reader with a catchy first line [and] the narration moves speedily over familiar territory with the economy of Raymond Carver and the breathless pace of Stephen Dixon. With language this precise, McInerney possesses the skill to be invisible: he refuse to draw the reader’s attention to himself but instead to the stories.”

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