Maybe it's what McInerney refers to as the "accumulated weight" of all those photos of him out nightclubbing (remember his involuntary participation in Spy magazine's "Iron-Man" nightlife decathlon contest?), looking like a gin-soaked deer caught in the headlights. Or maybe it was the overriding glibness of his ensuing novels ("The Story of My Life" was particularly thin) that made critics want to pile on. Either way, you can say this about McInerney in 1996: he has the firm, sturdy gaze of a survivor.