Hard Druck Story

How does an aspiring actress feel when she lands her first starring role as the miniskirted protagonist in Jay McInerney's latest novel? Ask his close friend Lisa Druck

Unless your last name is Asimov or Tolkien, inspiration, for most writers, usually comes in human form. Few matchups have the cutthroat exactitude that F. Scott Fitzgerald created between his wife, Zelda, and Tender Is the Night's Nicole Diver, but scanning fictional territory looking for signs of real life has long been a literary tradition. When Jay (Bright Lights, Big City) Mclnerney's much-discussed new novel, Story of My Life (Atlantic Monthly Press), comes to a bookstore near you this month, there's bound to be an urban-sleuth alert. So who's the very model of his "postmodern girl"? She's twenty-fouryear-old transplanted Floridian actress Lisa Druck (now Lisa Jo Hunter). A close friend of the author, Lisa admits that Story of My Life sports a slice o' her life. "Jay's got a bionic memory, but the Valley of the Dolls elements dip into fantasyland," says Lisa. "I mean, I knew Big Brother was watching, but I didn't think he'd rat on me." Like Mclnemey's heroine, Lisa was once a competitive equestrienne and still is a Mexican-food fanatic, but she disavows the book's tag as a fair-haired piranha in a miniskirt on a long night's journey into day. "That was then and this is now," she says (the now being a measure of domestic and professional stability— lawyer beau Kip supplying the former, and assorted soap stints the latter). Though just starting out, Lisa has studied at Lee Strasberg's Theatre Institute and with master scenesmith Michael (Audition) Shurtleff. Her wild-style, Little Women-gone-awry period is history: "Does this face look weathered?" quips Lisa. "There are no bags under these eyes. So let the past be the past and bygones be bygones. Let's go on, and, Jay, let me star in the movie!"

ANGELA JANKLOW