We weren't kidding when we said we were obsessively searching for Hamptons gossip. Hell, we decided we would even settle for gossip on socialites. So we hit New York Social Diary. And though we found nothing from the weekend's happenings (what is this place, Vegas?) we did find some somewhat older yet not yet widely circulated as far as we know Jay McInerney gossip.

Apparently the author has some beef with NYSD, and wasn't afraid to show off his temper tantrum skills with the party reporters.

All of it was fun with the exception of the moment with Jay McInerney passed by with his girlfriend Anne Hearst. As I raised my camera to take their pictures, he said in my face: “no photo ops for you after the mean, nasty, bitchy things you said about me and my book party.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, recalling that I’d covered his book party at “21” three and a half months ago, and although I couldn’t recall what I’d written, I knew it wasn’t mean, nasty or bitchy. Or at least, not intended to be.

“Oh, look at him, now he’s pretending he doesn’t know …” McInerney snarled.

I asked Anne Hearst what he was talking about. He jumped in: “it was so mean she didn’t even want me to see it.” Anne, who is not the snarling type, quietly concurred.

So, what exactly did NYSD say that pissed Jay off so much? Check out the book party review after the jump, and judge for yourself.

From the NYSD book party review last February 1.

Last night upstairs at “21,” Anne Hearst hosted a book party for her friend Jay McInerney and the publication of his seventh novel The Good Life.

More than 20 years ago, the gods gave Mr. McInerney a flight to the moon with his first novel, Bright Lights, Big City, bringing him fame and fortune and a throbbing media image akin to a space age Scott Fitzgerald. As it often is with fame and the famous as well, fate or the gods (and in the case of writers — the book reviewers) then began slapping the man around. Although he was sustained by the columnists of the boldfaced world and his natural need to keep on writing, the following novels came, often with great fanfare followed by authoritative disappointments.

Yesterday’s New York Times (written by Michiko Kakutani) took a swipe at his latest literary venture and this week’s New Yorker (written by the brilliant Louis Menand) praised him with certain reservations. Reviewers are a power unto themselves. The last time I read a review that panned a book, I picked it up because I liked the author’s previous book. In fact, I loved the author’s previous book. I loved the author’s new one too.

Well, it's not the best book review we've ever read, but it hardly requires a series of snarls and refusal to take a photograph. Then again, if you can't keep your name in the papers, you have to keep them in the gossips somehow.

Circus-like opening of Le Cirque [New York Social Diary]

Earlier: Growing up McInerney