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Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Augusten Burroughs Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 2004-04-01 ISBN: 0312423799 Number of pages: 320 Publisher: Picador Product features: - ISBN13: 9780312423797
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Dry: A MemoirBook Review: Dry review Summary: 5 Stars
After having read Running with Scissors, which was recommended to me by a close friend, I became fairly obsessed with the work of Augusten Burroughs. The moment I had finished, I ran to the nearest bookstore to scour over all the other memoirs, novels, and collections of short stories that he had written. After reviewing a somewhat extensive selection of his books, I ended up selecting Dry, the sequel to Running with Scissors, to be my next endeavor. I felt a powerful need to pick up where his previous book had left off.
This book was morbidly humorous to the point where I had to stop reading it in public because I could not contain my spontaneous bursts of laughter. Augusten Burroughs' life has been so astounding that it almost makes the reader question his validity. He begins living on his own at the age of nineteen, having had no education past the seventh grade. However with the somewhat unnatural charm he possesses, he is able to walk into an advertising agency from off the street and talk his way into being hired on the spot. He soon becomes one of the agency's most valued advertising representatives with the worst substance abuse problem.
Augusten uses alcohol, cocaine, and crack to numb himself from the pain of his past and present. After falling into a state of squalor, which involved drinking two bottles of scotch a night and urinating repetitively in his bed, his friends decide to step in. Augusten is sent to a gay-friendly rehabilitation center where he is forced to deal with the unconventional upbringing that left him so unstable as well as the fight of a loved one against aids. After rehab Augusten must struggle to redefine his life in terms of sobriety and adapt to this drastic change. He gives a great effort to find a balance between work and leisure which excludes the stresses that caused him to turn to substances, while still dealing with certain issues that he cannot escape.
This book is utterly incredible. My only disappointment was that it had to end. Augusten Burroughs wrote this memoir to expose to his readers how bad life can get. He also intended to send the hopeful message that no matter how difficult things become, life can always get better. Dry shows the reader that no matter what their current situation may be, if they have the intrinsic motivation, they can always improve upon it. This memoir leaves the reader both motivated and comfortably optimistic. It is a tragic yet satisfying tale of a young mans life.
Burroughs has a natural gift for captivating the reader entirely by completely exposing himself. He is ashamed of nothing and embraces his flaws. He spares no details of when he hit rock bottom for it shows how far he had to come and how much of an accomplishment it was. Anyone who reads this is sure to fall instantaneously in love with the author for his wit, determination, and imperfections.
Summary of Dry: A MemoirFrom the bestselling author of Running with Scissors comes Dry?the hilarious, moving, and no less bizarre account of what happened next.
You may not know it, but you've met Augusten Burroughs. You've seen him on the street, in bars, on the subway, at restaurants: a twenty-something guy, nice suit, works in advertising. Regular. Ordinary. But when the ordinary person had to drinks, Augusten was circling the drain by having twelve; when the ordinary person went home at midnight, Augusten never went home at all. Loud, distracting ties, automated wake-up calls, and cologne on the tongue could only hide so much for so long. At the request (well, it wasn't really a request) of his employers, Augusten landed in rehab, where his dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey, Jr., are immediately dashed by the grim reality of fluorescent lighting and paper hospital slippers. But when Augusten is forced to examine himself, something actually starts to click, and that's when he finds himself in the worst trouble of all. Because when his thirty days are up, he has to return to his same drunken Manhattan life?and live it sober. What follows is a memoir that's as moving as it is funny, as heartbreaking as it is real. Dry is the story of love, loss, and Starbucks as a higher power.
Fans of Augusten Burroughs's darkly funny memoir Running with Scissors were left wondering at the end of that book what would become of young Augusten after his squalid and fascinating childhood ended. In Dry, we find that although adult Augusten is doing well professionally, earning a handsome living as an ad writer for a top New York agency, Burroughs's personal life is a disaster. His apartment is a sea of empty Dewar's bottles, he stays out all night boozing, and he dabs cologne on his tongue in an unsuccessful attempt to mask the stench of alcohol on his breath at work. When his employer insists he seek help, Burroughs ships out to Minnesota for detoxification, counseling, and amusingly told anecdotes about the use of stuffed animals in group therapy. But after a month of such treatment, he's back in Manhattan and tenuously sober. And while its one thing to lay off the sauce in rehab, Burroughs learns that it's quite another to resume your former life while avoiding the alcohol that your former life was based around. This quest to remain sober is made dramatically more difficult, and the tale more harrowing, when Burroughs begins an ill-advised romance with a crack addict. Certainly the "recovered alcoholic fighting to stay sober" tale is not new territory for a memoirist. But Burroughs's account transcends clichés: it doesn't adhere to the traditional "temptation narrowly resisted" storyline and it features, in Burroughs himself, a central character that is sympathetic even when he's neither likable nor admirable. But what ultimately makes this memoir such a terrific read is a brilliant and candid sense of humor that manages to stay dry even when recalling events where the author was anything but. --John Moe
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