“So that’s what I’m here to become. And suddenly, this word fills me with a brand of sadness I haven’t felt since childhood. The kind of sadness you feel at the end of summer. When the fireflies are gone, the ponds have dried up and the plants are wilted, weary from being so green.” ― Augusten Burroughs
Do you know this awesome feeling when you discover a new author and you want to read all his books? This is what happened when I first picked up “Dry” by Augusten Burroughs. If I love a book I will finish it in one day – usually no matter what. This is what happened with “Dry”. I think Burroughs is simply amazing. Let’s dive right into the book review.
Augusten Burroughs was my man and caught my full attention after reading the first page of the book. He is candid, very poignant and sharp with words at the same time. The book is about him being an alcoholic, and his long path and struggle to sobriety. He worked at a advertising company and was very successful but he drank. He came to work drunk almost every single day and was just a huge mess. But even describing all this, Burroughs has managed to make me laugh out loud many times while being so self-deprecating and honest. The story was very interesting to me because of his battle with alcoholism. Even though I do not suffer from this disease I can understand or somewhat relate to him. His story kept me interested the entire time by never becoming monotonous or boring. All the people he meets and the descriptions of other addicts along with stories about his work made me read on.
The book was full of balance from his own struggles to all the stories and dialogues he had with his best friend Pighead, handsome Foster, his colleague Greer who is very funny as well as many others. As a German, I loved when he described how he worked with an advertising client from Germany.
“This man has a way of making every sentence sound like a street cable being stretched to the point of breakage.” [“Ve still have to meet viss ze pee-ahh – P.R. as in public relations”]
What impressed me the most was all the insight to love another person despite hopeless flaws and repressed emotions. It all makes the reader in turns fascinated and awed what he had been through when he drank on a daily basis. (1 Liter of Vodka and a couple of cocktails plus once in a while a hit of coke) It made me wonder how much abuse you can do to your body and still live? How much can the human body take? If you read the book you will learn a lot about how rehab clinics work; how AA meetings and therapies will help him throughout his struggles. This book is just real. I recommend it to anybody who tries to seek understanding of alcoholism. This book will take you from laughs to sadness and back to laughs then sorrow and hope and back to sadness. Burroughs is awesome and original and while reading you have to keep in mind that it shows how crazy his condition is but at the same time he is unafraid of what is. “Life is just a question mark!”
He brings up many other stereotypes in a funny way. Sort of like nobody gets away. I get this feeling like, “Should I really laugh about this now?” but I do.
“It’s like walking on eggshells. Like in one of those cheese interracial movies forth seventies where nobody ever mentions that he white girl’s boyfriend is back, but everyone is highly aware of it. Then somebody says ‘watermelon’ and everybody sort of grips. This is how I feel right now.”
All these questions that you will ask yourself like “will he relapse? Will he get sober?” are just constantly present. His love towards Pighead made me tear up occasionally. It’s not pretty, but it’s necessary and eye-opening and a very funny and deep portrait of a recovering addict.
Enjoy it if you decide to read it!
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