The Good Life

Assimilating the deaths of 3,000 people into a story so that two may meet, Jay McInerney again shows us that rich white people suffer. When Krzysztof Kieslowski killed hundreds in the movie Red so that two could meet, at least we cared. Luke and Corrine, the two at the heart of The Good Life, almost seem like fleshed-out characters when they’re apart; together, they’re bland confections. The emotions they share are as transparent as the hole in the sky left by the fallen twin towers. Also, the writerly secret to sympathy for people having affairs isn’t just giving them asshole spouses. And McInerney’s prose is heavy-handed—witness all the references to twins—and at times desperately corny. “When he pulled out of her and rolled onto his side, she was filled with a sense of loss.” Honestly.