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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
Maravilloso. No soy de bares y nunca los frecuenté, pero a partir de ahora veré con otros ojos todos estos lugares de reunión ya sean bares o pubs o cualquier local que sea capaz de crear en los asiduos a ellos vínculos tan fuertes como los descritos en este libro. Hay familia más allá de los lazos familiares. Bares que lugares tan gratos para conversar...
A wonderful coming of age memoir of the author’s own life, J.R. is raised by a single mother while missing his father known only to him as The Voice. J. R. Moehringer, author, tells of his transformation from boy to man with the help of Uncle Charlie—bookie, bartender, reader, ersatz father figure—and a cast of bar regulars, cooks, cops, and other older male friends who thump and tweak the kid on his path to adulthood. The book title reflects Moehringer’s adoration of a bar just 147 steps from his grandpa’s house where he (mostly) grew up.
I adored this book! Wonderful characters. Heartbreaking relationships. Poignant self-doubt. Triumphant accomplishment. The book arises out of a young boy’s craving for fathering. In place of his father, Moehringer subs the bar—Publicans—and the men he gets to know there. The action, as well as our hero, begins from, centers around, returns to that bar in sadness, triumph, loneliness, despair. The tales of excessive alcohol consumption challenged me, though and for that reason I give the book 4 rather than 5 stars. (Full disclosure: I was raised a teetotaling Mormon, though have been formally gone from that organization for 30+ years. I DO consume alcohol though never close to the extent the author describes he did in his young adulthood. Maybe I didn’t get started early enough. Or maybe personal control tethers me to limiting my consumption so I can walk out of the bar without swaying. In any case, my lack of experience with the repeated, excessive, drunkenness described affected my rating.)
Still, I highly recommend this book!
I adored this book! Wonderful characters. Heartbreaking relationships. Poignant self-doubt. Triumphant accomplishment. The book arises out of a young boy’s craving for fathering. In place of his father, Moehringer subs the bar—Publicans—and the men he gets to know there. The action, as well as our hero, begins from, centers around, returns to that bar in sadness, triumph, loneliness, despair. The tales of excessive alcohol consumption challenged me, though and for that reason I give the book 4 rather than 5 stars. (Full disclosure: I was raised a teetotaling Mormon, though have been formally gone from that organization for 30+ years. I DO consume alcohol though never close to the extent the author describes he did in his young adulthood. Maybe I didn’t get started early enough. Or maybe personal control tethers me to limiting my consumption so I can walk out of the bar without swaying. In any case, my lack of experience with the repeated, excessive, drunkenness described affected my rating.)
Still, I highly recommend this book!
As the daughter of an alcoholic father, I found some comfort in this book. Though some parts of the book felt slower than others, I enjoyed the varied pace. This story about given and closed families was sad, funny and hopeful. The author did an amazing job with character development; not only could I visualize every character, I was invested in every last one of them (even the ones that I didn’t like!) I enjoy memoirs that feel “real.”Though some of the characters seemed larger than life, they never felt exaggerated. This is a book that I’d recommend, especially for fiction lovers that think they don’t like non-fiction!
Wow. I laughed. I cried. It became a part of me. Seriously. Great story. Wonderful characters. Well told. Thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing.
I thought that it was a good story and I did enjoy the read...but I was a bit put-off by one small thing. It seemed to me that every time he encountered a great lesson, he spent time in the book describing the lesson, and pages later conducted himself in a way that seemed the great life lesson hadn't penetrated at all. Although it's part of what probably makes the story great for most, for me it felt unresolved and uncomfortable. The fact that it gave me feeling at all is an accomplishment, just wasn't my favorite feelings.
I consumed this book pretty quickly, but honestly, I wasn't that impressed and am not sure we need the soon-to-be-released movie version of it. It's an entertaining but flawed memoir that seems a bit dated now (even though it only came out in 2005). I thought there would be some really insightful passages on masculinity or something, but it was mostly a ton of stories about drinking and bad behavior while growing up in the New York 80s. I don't need another glamorized/justified account of alcoholism, but maybe that's just me. Pass.
Some memoirs are page turners. This is one of them. I'll be thinking about this one awhile. I can't begin to describe the depth of the characters and the story so I won't even try. Highly recommend. Watching the movie next!
4.75/5
What a brilliant memoir and book. It made me emotional more than a couple of times. This coming of age is sweet, detailed and soooo well written. It's no wonder that the author has only gone and become the ghostwriter for celebrities. The way it's written helped me understand what his childhood and adolescence looked like, and I love the fact that so many elements are common in everyone's experience as a child and young adult.
These are my favourite excerpts from the book:
1. [..] My days were controlled by teachers, my future was in the hands of heredity and luck. Bill and Bud promised, however, that my brain was my own and always would be. They said that by choosing books, the right books, and reading them slowly, carefully, I could always retain control of at least one thing.
2. I asked Uncle Charlie what would happen if my mother couldn't remember me. He said he wasn't sure what I meant. I wasn't sure either. I think I was asking him who I would be if my mother didn't know me.
3. I felt a longing for Lana that was like the longing for Publicans, and I knew that it had something to do with the need for protection and distraction.
4. Each male narrator mentions their father in the first few pages. In 'Gatsby', the first sentence. That is where a troubled male narrator usually begins, where I might have begun.
5. I told Bob the Cop how sorry I was. He waved off my apology.
"Honest mistake," he said. "Like I told you, that's why they put erasers on pencils. But J.R., believe me. They don't put erasers on guns."
6. I slumped against the back of the booth. It hadn't hit me until then. Manhasset, where I'd once felt like the only boy without a father, was now a town full of fatherless children.
What a brilliant memoir and book. It made me emotional more than a couple of times. This coming of age is sweet, detailed and soooo well written. It's no wonder that the author has only gone and become the ghostwriter for celebrities. The way it's written helped me understand what his childhood and adolescence looked like, and I love the fact that so many elements are common in everyone's experience as a child and young adult.
These are my favourite excerpts from the book:
1. [..] My days were controlled by teachers, my future was in the hands of heredity and luck. Bill and Bud promised, however, that my brain was my own and always would be. They said that by choosing books, the right books, and reading them slowly, carefully, I could always retain control of at least one thing.
2. I asked Uncle Charlie what would happen if my mother couldn't remember me. He said he wasn't sure what I meant. I wasn't sure either. I think I was asking him who I would be if my mother didn't know me.
3. I felt a longing for Lana that was like the longing for Publicans, and I knew that it had something to do with the need for protection and distraction.
4. Each male narrator mentions their father in the first few pages. In 'Gatsby', the first sentence. That is where a troubled male narrator usually begins, where I might have begun.
5. I told Bob the Cop how sorry I was. He waved off my apology.
"Honest mistake," he said. "Like I told you, that's why they put erasers on pencils. But J.R., believe me. They don't put erasers on guns."
6. I slumped against the back of the booth. It hadn't hit me until then. Manhasset, where I'd once felt like the only boy without a father, was now a town full of fatherless children.
I was worried this memoir would somehow be a long episode of "Cheers"; or worse, an ode to drinking. Wrong. It is a glipse into the life of an interesting person who grew up without a dad & became a good man. Easy read. Moehringer is one self-actualized man! I'd like to meet him in person.
Read this because I saw the movie, and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Better than the movie, actually.