The first-person narration of Story of My Life allows interior views of the main character and captures the intelligence of a likable character living on the edge. Alison's narration is more casual than the unnamed narrator's in Bright Lights, Big City, with many digressions and casual interpolations, and the erratic nature of her storytelling reveals her manic energy and the lack of coherence in her life.

The narrative technique evokes works like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) and The Great Gatsby (1925), but a more important link to these works is McInerney's realistic approach to fiction. Like these two earlier novels, Story of My Life is a novel of manners, presenting the reader with an accurate picture of a certain time and place. The reader knows what the characters drink, where they eat, what drugs they take, what Broadway shows they see.

This realism also...