Alcohol is known as a social lubricant. I’ve been known to use it in very stressful situations like, fifth grade.
And when it comes to alcohol, I’m a lightweight. And I am one of those Asians who turns red after one sip. One night, I drank so much that afterwards I went to a reservation and built a casino.
Being a lightweight makes me a cheap date. One glass of wine and I’ll go to bed with you, make you breakfast in the morning and then nag you the rest of the week for not taking the garbage out. Two glasses and I’ll start bitching about your mother and how nobody’s ever good enough for her son.
In Dry, author Augusten Burroughs, narrates the story of his descent into alcohol, drugs and poor hygiene: he was so coked out of his mind he had started using Irish Spring.
Ok, maybe that wasn’t in the book, but in one scene where Augusten wakes up in an alley after a coke binge, clothes dirty and hair matted down, I could only think about how horrible it must be to have to face his hairdresser.
Augusten Burroughs is most famously compared to another gay author David Sedaris which probably really ticks Burroughs off. The toughest thing Sedaris ever had to deal with was having a domineering mother. Who hasn’t had that? My own mother was domineering and I grew up ok--all my ex-boyfriends would tell you that through their lawyers, since they all have restraining orders against me.
While there are similarities to the two authors’ style--they both use personal experience and have a certain gay sensibility, like how they talk about sports and girls all the time instead of their feelings--I think of Sedaris as a humorist, like Nora Ephron or Erma Bombeck. Burroughs is more of a storyteller, I think, and more satisfying. He never descends into self-pity with his addiction. In a way, I think he is most honest, most matter-of-fact in the darkest moments in the book.
Article comments
1 - Stu S.
Who writes these reviews? I mean come
on, seriously, who writes them?
2 - Eric Olsen
this one was, failry evidently, writeen by a person named No Milk
3 - Tristan
and I want to know more about all those restraining orders No Milk ...!!!
Heh ...heh ...
I love Asian women --- I'd be a real sucker for No Milk...
The line about turning red as soon as she touches ETOH (alcohol) --- and starting a casino on a reservation--I thought would raise a Holy firestorm of righteous indignation from diverse sectors trying to defend Native americans and their unfair stereotyping.....
but to me--it raised a question>>>
I can see them being allowed to use mescaline as part of their religious rites, but which religion uses casinos
as part of their rites ..??
Those who found this book (DRY) a bit enigmatic, might need to watch the film Leaving Las Vegas with Nick Cage as the dying alcoholic; talk about GRAPHIC ...!!!
Also ---see the film 28 Days with Sandra Bullock; this film is one of the most real portrayals of what actually goes on in a Rehab. It is very lightly veiled reference to the 28 day Rehap at their Center City , minnesots location of Hazelden, the best substance abuse center available and the one Betty Ford went to which she modeled the Betty Ford Center from.
The starkness portrayed in DRY is actually UNDERplayed, which anyone that has been there can attest to.
4 - Anna
Sorry to disappoint you Tristan, but No Milk is a man.