Dry: A Memoir

Dry: A Memoir
by Augusten Burroughs

Dry: A Memoir
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Book Summary Information

Author: 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 Memoir

Book Review: Between the Covers: http://bookreview-blog.blogspot.com
Summary: 4 Stars

I have a book review blog that reviewed this book on January 19, 2009:
[....]

After reading about his childhood experience in Running with Scissors, I was intrigued to find out what Augusten did with his life afterward. Having read his first memoir, I was not all that surprised in his second one to learn he became a heavy drinker. While the writing was less graphic this time around, his content was still what you would expect. Burroughs remains the best-selling writer that can keep you entertained and laughing, even during his period with alcoholism and treatment.

After being abandoned by his mother with her psychiatrist who later adopted him and living in a "life of squalor, pedophiles, no school and free pills," Augusten left for New York. At the age of 19, he was able to sell him self as self-educated and determined, landing him a job in advertising. By the age of 24, when this memoir takes place, Augusten is drinking a little too much. When his drinking starts to cause problems at work with his partner when trying to land a Faberge egg account, his boss gives him an option. He can either go to rehab or lose his job. Augusten chooses rehab, thinking it will just be a month with no work and movie star glamour at a gay rehab center called the Pride Institute. It is in these thirty days that Augusten realizes he truly was an alcoholic and not just the casual New York drinker he thought everyone in advertising was. During therapy, Augusten realizes that his reason for drinking is in order to not feel everything that he has to deal with. And this is all in the first few chapters. The rest of the memoir involves Augusten's struggle to return to the life he lived drunk and try to live it sober. This is not made easier when his best friend is sick, a friend from rehab moves in, and Augusten becomes attracted to a man in group therapy (where he signed a contract not to get romantically involved with anyone). And then there is also his job. His agency is working on a campaign for German beer and to top it off, someone from the office seems to be messing with him so he will lose his job. Will Augusten learn to deal with his new sober lifestyle or is everything just too much to keep him from drinking again? All of this at the age of 24.

I'll admit that his first memoir was pretty explicit, but this work is tamer in its descriptions while still keeping it fascinating. When starting the novel, I expected his time in rehab to be the majority of the book, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn about what happens after when you are on your own. One doesn't need to read the first memoir to understand this work since Burroughs returns to his past when necessary to better understand what he is trying to deal with. His writing remains interesting throughout the whole, and readers will find themselves emotionally reacting to what Burroughs presents during his tug-of-war struggle with drinking, as well as everything else in his life with which he has to deal.

This is another work where I would only recommend to a certain type of reader. And though I said you can get by without reading Running with Scissors, I would still read it first to get the whole chronological effect of the experience. Augusten Burroughs definitely encounters some interesting characters in his life and you will love what he has to say about them.

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."
- Groucho Marx

Summary of Dry: A Memoir

From 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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