Dry: A Memoir Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Dry: A Memoir Book

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 MoeRead More

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  • Product Description

    With unconventional wit and a wonderfully weird way of looking at things, Augusten Burroughs chronicles his life on the edge after leaving his deeply eccentric foster family. Dry opens in Manhattan, where Augusten has established a life for himself as a high-paid advertising hotshot. But his past haunts him still as he tries to create a grown-up life. Dry is at times howlingly funny, devastatingly moving and, in the end, uplifting. It further establishes Burroughs as one of the most original authors writing today.

  • 0312272057
  • 9780312272050
  • Augusten Burroughs
  • 1 June 2003
  • St. Martin's Press
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 320
  • 1
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