Upon publication, reviewers were quick to recognize basic similarities between Bright Lights, Big City and earlier pop-culture classics. For example, Mclnerney's central "you" character who took pride in his rowdy cocaine adventures is comparable to the errant youths in The Bushwacked Piano (Thomas McGuane, 1971). In the same literary vein, Bright Lights, Big City was also referred to as the Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger, 1951) of the 1980s because it echoed the desperate and pathetic tone of Holden Caulfield's adolescent search for identity.