How It Ended

From the writer whose first novel, Bright Lights, Big City, defined a generation, a collection of twenty-six stories that trace the arc of his career for nearly three decades.

“Extremely entertaining. . . elegant, subtle, shapely and reflective.” —The New York Times

Only seven of these stories have ever been collected in a book, but all twenty-six unveil and re-create the manic flux of our society. Whether set in New England, Los Angeles, New York or the South, they capture various stages of adulthood, from early to budding to entrenched to resentful: a young man confronting the class system at a summer resort; a young woman holed up in a remote cabin while her (married) boyfriend campaigns for the highest office of all; a couple whose experiments in sexuality cross every line imaginable; an actor visiting his wife in rehab; a doctor contending with both convicts and his own criminal past; a youthful socialite returning home to nurse her mother; an older one scheming for her next husband; a family celebrating the holidays while mired in loss year after year; even Russell and Corrine Calloway, whom we first met in McInerney's novel Brightness Falls.

A manifold exploration of delusion, experience and transformation, these stories display a preeminent writer of our time at the very top of his form.