Dry

By: Jan Bunny
Date: 15th Feb 06
Format: Book
Motivation: Good with a whiskey in the bath

What:
Dry

Who:
Augusten Burroughs

Where:
All good bookstores

Someone once said that being an alcoholic is like doing the waltz with a gorilla, only the dancing doesn’t stop until the gorilla says so.

Augustine Burroughs' memoirs of a drunk, Dry, is a story of despair, loss and love, which is also gut wrenchingly funny – and often, just as ludicrous as a gorilla waltz.

Burroughs' story begins during his years as a high-flying Manhattan ad-scribe, still under 25, perpetually inebriated and completely self-destructive. He regales his experience of Fear and Loathing benders, rehab for alcoholism, the subsequent AA meetings, and eventually watching his best friend, Pighead, succumb to AIDS.

What sets Dry apart from the plethora of other NYC tales of debauchery and self-loathing, is that despite Burroughs' tales being of such a shocking, absurd and heartbreaking nature, we can still identify with the emotional by-products of his experiences.

Burroughs writes with such biting honesty, a far cry from his days as a smooth-talking, double-life-leading alcoholic advertising scoundrel – setting him well apart from his oft-compared compadre and fellow queer humorist, David Sedaris. Dry is sure to leave you thirsty for more.