SOURCE: "Having Fun in New York," in The Christian Science Monitor, October 5, 1984, p. B5.

In the following review, MacDougall offers a favorable assessment of Bright Lights, Big City.

The nameless hero of this very funny first novel narrates the story in second person—a device that runs the risk of becoming gimmicky and tedious but instead triumphs, emphasizing the distance the hero feels from his collapsing life.

A "perennial new kid" in school, he grew up with a feeling "of always standing to one side of yourself, of watching yourself in the world even as you were being in the world, and wondering if this was how everyone felt."

A few months ago, however, the world had seemed his oyster. He was 24 years old. He was married to beautiful Amanda, whom he had met in Kansas City, where he had gone after college to work as a reporter...