|
|
Suzanne
Rating:
 
Review
The Tender Bar, a well written memoir baptized in alcohol, chronicles how Moehringer found acceptance and refuge in a neighborhood bar, first called Dickens and then Publicans. Its heavy-drinking array of misfit employees and regulars, centered around J.R.’s Uncle Charlie and his blue collar friends, became his second family. This was particularly true since J.R. grew up without his dad. I was quite struck by how keenly he felt his dad’s absence in his life, compared to many people nowadays who sadly seem to consider absentee fathers almost the norm. The bar regulars were real characters and Moehringer does a smashing job of portraying them vividly. I didn’t find them quite as endearing as he did, but perhaps that’s because I’m not a guy. J.R.’s relationship with his mother and their struggles with poverty, which often forced them to move back in with her dysfunctional parents, start the story. It proceeds through college, his first love, and his first tentative stabs as a career writer. An enjoyable read, although as with most memoirs you won’t find a strong plot line here.
Best Line:
“For two hours Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson broke up and made up and broke up again, for no apparent reason, until Kristofferson mercifully died.” (pg. 112)
Kim
Rating:
Review
After the author’s insightful prologue, we meet seven–year-old J.R. when he is living at his grandparent’s house (appropriately named The Shit House) in Manhasset, New York, with his mother, his aunt and six cousins, and his uncle Charlie, and see J.R.’s first introduction to Dickens, a neighborhood bar mere steps from his grandparent’s house. His Uncle Charlie works at Dickens, and has a number of good friends that become role models for the fatherless J.R. throughout his life. Other men continue to shape J.R.’s life as he grows up (the bookstore men, Bill and Bud, are reclusive yet incredibly supportive of J.R.), along with a few women, most notably his mother. It’s clear that the author knows his mom did the best she could with what she had while he was growing up, and his dedication of this memoir to her is fitting. There were several times I laughed out loud while reading J.R.’s words - my favorite was his attempt to lose his virginity with Lana atop Camelback Mountain in Phoenix – but mostly I appreciated his honesty and humility. This memoir is one of the best books I’ve ever read. The Best Line is also one of the best I’ve ever read too.
Best Line:
“We would live in a house near her parents and have two towheaded children, and every time she yawned or took a phone call in the other room my stomach would lurch.”
|
|
