Orangutans and Other Party Animals

Ahead of Monday's Mary Karr reading, I've been page-turning her new memoir, Lit (yes, it's compulsively readable). Yesterday, I suddenly realized, Hold on, this is the second memoir I've read in recent weeks (Karr books aside) that deals with the battle against the demon drink. Over the holidays, for review purposes, I also read the debut book by New York-based writer Colin Broderick: Orangutan, which is bound to get a lot of attention when it's officially launched next week (it's been enthusiastically blurbed by the likes of Colm McCann and Billy Collins). The title refers to the metaphoric beast that Broderick felt himself turn into when he drank, or the self-destructive creature that led him to drink in the first place. Like Karr, Broderick's childhood, in Northern Ireland, was no bed of roses (though he's yet to write his Liars' Club--that's going to be the sequel, apparently). Unlike Karr, Broderick's story does not end with the consolations of religion ... though he does win the great prize of sobriety--another thing the Irishman and the Texan have in common.

You can read more about Broderick's memoir here:

www.colinbroderick.com

Hope to see many of you at the Karr reading on Monday night. I'll be blogging about it, of course.

Posted on Fri, January 8, 2010 by Robert Cremins

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