Studied writing with Raymond Carver and is considered, together with Tama Janowitz and Bret Easton Ellis, one of the most important members of the 1980’s literary movement known as the "Brat Pack". His career began in 1984 with the novel Bright Lights, Big City which is also the title of a blues track by Jimmy Reed. The novel deeply struck the critics with both its description of the crude reality of cocaine addiction and its unusual writing style in the second person. Bright Lights, Big City became an international best seller and established McInerney’s reputation as the leader of a new generation of writers who described the crude realty of young people’s lives in urban settings. Besides the novels Ransom (1987), Story of My Life (1989), Brightness Falls (1992), The Last of the Savages (1996), Model Behavior and Naked on the Grass (2000), all well received by both the public and the critics, McInerney has written a collection of short stories How It Ended (2001), and the screenplay for the film Gia (1998), starring Angelina Jolie. His latest novel, The Good Life (2006), features Corinne and Russell, the same characters found in Brightness Falls. McInerney lives in New York, and writes a column on wines, of which he is an ardent connoisseur, for the “Chicago Tribune”.