This book is not on the Beacon reading list this summer, and yet it fell into my hands. I rarely race through a book as I did this one.
'Dry' is by the author of 'Running with Scissors'...another book not on the reading list and yet, now I am reading that too. I'm not great at following lists.
'Dry' is an autobiographical account of a NYC guy's struggle with alcohol and his gradual acceptance that he does, in fact, have a problem. It is truly a NYC story in that so many people here live out their social lives with extrodinarily vast amounts of alcohol--and yet will argue that this is just how it is in NYC.
I wonder if this book is a book that seniors should buy, try to read, but ultimately put it on their book shelf and come back to it in a couple more years. I'm not sure if I could've related to it in my teens. Now, at 34, I have met many, many Augustens, very few who have come to admit that they have a problem.
This is the kind of book you hope someone will get to BEFORE they get into this state.
Plus...it's written in a way that finds humor in the bleakest of scenarios...which always cheers me up a bit.
This is the most intelligent film I've seen in a long time. It has a large cast of central characters, and a multitude of narrative threads weaved together. And yet, remarkably, these characters have depth, complexity, and a believablity that I haven't seen in a long while
Thematically, you should note ideas about:
* how this film made you think about the complexity of stereotypes and racism.
* how we are all capable of bad things as well as good
* how our lives over the course of one day could have taken a multitude of other twists and turns
It's a truly wonderful film. Please see it.