Jay McInerney is recovering from emergency brain surgery.
Jay McInerney is recovering from emergency brain surgery
The 69-year-old novelist – whose book ‘Bright Lights, Big City’ was turned into a 1988 Michael J Fox film and who was part of a 1980s literary ‘Brat Pack’ including ‘American Psycho’ writer Bret Easton Ellis – wrote to friends to say he fell over at home and later had to be rushed for emergency treatment.
In an email he sent to friends which was obtained by Page Six, Jay said he had a dizzy spell followed by a fall at his home in Manhattan, New York, and woke up the next morning to find “blood all over the bedroom, the bathroom, the hallway, the bed and the pillow”.
He added: “Eventually had to explain to the cleaning lady I hadn’t murdered anyone and give her a bonus.”
When Jay consulted a doctor he said they “discovered a four inch gash in the back of my head”, adding: “A CAT scan eventually revealed two Subdural hematomas inside my skull. I was pretty dizzy and my vision was blurry and sometimes doubled and the next few weeks are a little vague.
“So I apologise if I kind of disappeared during recent weeks. Email got ignored. “I tried to make lists but it didn’t really help. I forgot to look at the lists. And I took a lot of naps, a talent I never really possessed before.”
Jay underwent a “two-hour brain procedure” as a result of his injury and Jay admitted: “My CAT scan to check on the procedure two weeks later wasn’t too good.”
He said: “I was just on my way out to dinner last Monday night when I got a call from the hospital insisting that I go to the emergency room immediately. Naturally, I said, ‘Well, can’t I go to dinner first?’
“I felt fine and Roscioli was (hard) to get into.”
But Jay said a doctor’s assistant told him he could end up keeling over at the restaurant – a warning he said led to him “reluctantly” going to an emergency room, and then the Intensive Care Unit where he said “the nurse confiscated the half bottle of Krug that had somehow found its way into my overnight bag, though not before I managed to sneak a glass”.
Jay subsequently had surgery, which he said left him with “two holes in my skull” and “lots of staples”.
He said: “Happily almost all my hair seems intact, if not entirely clean.”
Jay’s wife Anne Hearst was by his side during the trauma and said it was something he “definitely” doesn’t want to experience again.