Klappentext

"Hailed by Newsweek as »a superb and humane social critic« with, according to The Wall Street Journal, »all the true instincts of a major novelist,« Jay McInerney unveils a story of love, family, conflicting desires, and catastrophic loss in his most powerfully searing work thus far.

Clinging to a semiprecarious existence in TriBeCa, Corrine and Russell Calloway have survived a separation and are thoroughly wonderstruck by young twins whose provenance is nothing less than miraculous, even as they contend with the faded promise of a marriage tinged with suspicion and deceit. Meanwhile, several miles uptown and perched near the top of the Upper East Side’s social register, Luke McGavock has postponed his accumulation of wealth in an attempt to recover the sense of purpose now lacking in a life that often gives him pause—especially with regard to his teenage daughter, whose wanton extravagance bears a horrifying resemblance to her mother’s. But on a September morning, brightness falls horribly from the sky, and people worlds apart suddenly find themselves working side by side at the devastated site, feeling lost anywhere else, yet battered still by memory and regret, by fresh disappointment and unimaginable shock. What happens, or should happen, when life stops us in our tracks, or our own choices do? What if both secrets and secret needs, long guarded steadfastly, are finally revealed? What is the good life?

Posed with astonishing understanding and compassion, these questions power a novel rich with characters and events, both comic and harrowing, revelatory about not only New York after the attacks but also the toll taken on those lucky enough to have survived them. Wise, surprising, and, ultimately, heart-stoppingly redemptive, The Good Life captures lives that allow us to see–through personal, social, and moral complexity–more clearly into the heart of things."

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"McInerney’s premise is that after September 11th anything seemed possible to the survivors. (...). It’s true that New York briefly — well, it wasn’t so brief, that was the amazing thing about it —turned into a small town after September 11th. The enormous asymmetries that ordinarily organize metropolitan life disappeared. (...). They didn’t fight off their old lives; they made peace with them. September 11th was more likely to end an extramarital affair than to enable one."
(Louis Menand im New Yorker vom 06.02.2006)

"»The Good Life« erzählt von dem Verleger Russell Calloway und seiner Frau Corinne, die sich in einem Loft in Tribeca an ihre bildungsbürgerliche Downtownexistenz klammern, und er erzählt vom Investmentbanker Luke McGavock und seiner glamourösen Frau Sasha, die zur Haute Volée der Upper Eastside gehören. Die Stärke des Buches ist es gerade, dass sich McInerny keine inhaltlichen Zwänge aufbürdet, dass er sich nicht mit Feuerwehrmännern, Terroristen oder den historischen Hintergründen belastet, sondern immer ein Quäntchen seiner New Yorker Oberflächlichkeit bewahrt. So kann er mit seinem Gespür für entscheidende Details und popkulturelle Querverweise genau jenes Stimmungsbild vom New York in den Tagen vor und nach dem 11. September zeichnen, das bisher gefehlt hat."
(Andrian Kreye in der Süddeutschen Zeitung vom 18.04.2006)