Business Jay Mcinerney Is a Writer Who

¶ … Business

Jay McInerney is a writer who has had to deal with the pros and cons of being a renowned figure. Anyone who has achieved some sort of recognition, whether it be for positive reasons such as being an excellent writer, or for notorious reasons such as being drunk and slovenly on a reality television program, will be in a position where the recognition is positive and negative. There is the good kind of attention such as talk shows or interviews where you're questioned on the aspects of your interests. There is also the negative attention associated with celebrity such as with Paparazzi. In his short story, "The Business," he brings the reader into his personal world of celebrity and also explores what it is like for people who are even more instantly recognizable than he is.

The first person narrator of this story informs the reader from the outset that he is educated and intelligent. Martin has a degree from a prestigious college and has had work experience as a professional newspaperman. While in college, he specialized in "poststructuralist analysis of film adaptations of major American novels" (McInerney 335). From there, he worked on the peripherals of the film industry as a movie reviewer and entertainment reporter. All of this information is given to the reader in the second paragraph of the piece. From the language that McInerney chooses, it is evident that this narrator is someone who thinks very highly of himself and his achievements. If the reader closely examines what he considers his expertise, it can be broken down into simpler wording. He studied movies that were adapted from American books and he did so using the idea of poststructuralism which is when the person is aware that all of society is comprised of social constructions. Things have meaning because society tells us that they have meaning. So too the films only have meaning because certain factions tell us that they have meaning.

This seemingly arrogant attitude continues to present itself as the story continues, allowing the reader to see how the narrator becomes more and more full of himself during the course of his alteration from film reviewer to screen writer. He decides to write scripts initially not out of any particular love and not because he has one unique idea. Rather, he interviews a person involved in the film industry and decides that he is superior to his subject. The man he is interviewing is not given a name, nor is his career explained. All the reader knows about this man is that he is smoking a cigarette and that he has something green in his teeth. We are only given this limited information because that is how the narrator perceives this man; a nobody in comparison to himself and his own abilities.

All of the narrator's interactions with other characters are reflections of his own opinions of himself. He talks about show business with his aunt Alexis and marginalizes her. The reader is told that she had acted and even been married to a director, but that she has no real pull in the modern Hollywood. Thus, Alexis is of little use to the narrator. Any component of the story that might potentially have true emotion is similarly marginalized. Just like Aunt Alexis's importance is limited compared to the feeling of importance the narrator has. One perfect example is when the narrator decides to leave his home for Los Angeles. He isn't going to take his girlfriend because she has told him that she is in love with his best friend and has been cheating on him for half of a year. This news would be emotionally devastating for most people, but this particular narrator does not have enough emotion to feel much of anything for this news. He does hint at some deeper feeling later one when he is drunk and considers calling his now ex-girlfriend. He says that he is picturing her expression after getting the interest of a producer for one of his screenplays. "Imagining her chagrin when she realized what she'd given up" (McInerney 340). Instead of doing this, the narrator passes out drunk. This sentence indicates that the break up with his girlfriend actually caused him some emotional pain, something he admits nowhere else.