Story of My Life is a novel published in 1988 by American author Jay McInerney.
Plot and characters
The novel is narrated in the first-person from the point of view of Alison Poole, "an ostensibly jaded, cocaine-addled, sexually voracious 20-year-old." Alison is originally from Virginia and lives in Manhattan, where she is involved in several sexual relationships and is aspiring to become an actress. She falls in love with bond trader and Shakespeare expert Dean, but soon they betray each other. The novel implies that the cause of Poole's "party girl" behavior is her father's abuse, including the killing of her prize jumping horse.
Influences Poole is based on McInerney's former girlfriend Rielle Hunter, then named Lisa Druck. In the novel, Poole describes her childhood and tells how her show jumper horse Dangerous Dan had suddenly "dropped dead." McInerney's novel ends with Poole disclosing that her horse was poisoned by her father:
There was speculation that Story of My Life was a roman à clef when it first appeared; to New York magazine's questions "Is it real? Did it happen?" McInerney replied, "I'm anticipating some of that kind of speculation, but I'm utterly confident of not having any lawsuits on my hands. The book is a fully imagined work of fiction. On the other hand, it's not to say that I didn't make use of [pause]...That's why I live in New York. Mine is not an autonomous imagination."
However, in 1981, Lisa Druck's horse, Henry the Hawk, had in fact been killed (albeit by electrocution rather than poison) by her father, James Druck, in order to collect on a $150,000 insurance policy. James Druck was under investigation by the FBI for fraud when he died in 1990.
Poole also appears in the novels of Bret Easton Ellis, including American Psycho, in which she is sexually assaulted by the protagonist Patrick Bateman, and plays a major role in Glamorama as the girlfriend of protagonist Victor Ward. A reference to Poole and the Kentucky Derby — a chapter in McInerney's novel — is also included in Mary Harron's film adaptation of American Psycho in a conversation between Bateman (played by Christian Bale), Elizabeth (played by screenplay co-writer Guinevere Turner), and Christie (played by Cara Seymour):
In 2008, McInerney incorporated Hunter's affair with presidential candidate John Edwards into "Penelope on the Pond", featuring Poole, in his short story collections The Last Bachelor and How It Ended.Familiar groove in the Big Apple, The Australian.
Critical response
Michiko Kakutani wrote,
Publishing history
In August 2008, Vintage Books ordered an additional 2,500 copies of the book in the wake of the interest generated by then-presidential candidate John Edwards acknowledging his affair with Hunter."Edwards' mistress was basis for '80s book character", Baltimore Sun
Notes
External links Grove/Atlantic, Inc.