About this title: This warmhearted but clear-eyed memoir by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist J.R. Moehringer spotlights the somewhat unorthodox location that served as his refuge in childhood and early adulthood. After Moehringer's mother left his abusive, alcoholic DJ father, the two lived with his grandparents in Manhasset, Long Island. As his grandfather was ...
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Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Fair. Dust Cover Missing. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Used-Acceptable. Corners show creases. Cover shows wear. minor tears on cover and/or spine. Slight rubbing and bumping damage to corners and edges. Cover shows some scuffing. This book ships in padded mailer via USPS. read more
Description: Fine. 0786888768 Excellent condition Soft cover book, clean pages, No creases to spine, this book is Near NEW! Shop & Save With US. read more
Description: Good. 2006-Paperback-Cover shows some light shelf-wear. ---Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
"This is an interesting memoir by a Pulitzer Prize winning author. JR was raised by his mom, after his drunken and abusive father split. His uncle Charlie is a bartender in a popular bar in Manhasset NY. The story focuses on his relationship to the men he knows there, their strengths and weaknesses. The narrative is crisp and the stoies engaging and often hilarious. We follow JR to Arizona with his mom, to Yale, and to an internship with the NY Times. His relations with women particularly his first love Sidney are well desribed and insightful. Sidney is a rich beauty that anyone would fall for, but her behaviour shows that he can never really trust her and he suffers greatly over this. The men in the bar are interesting, funny, insightful and loyal. Yet, they are flawed. They drink way too much, gamble, don't focus and are often irresponsible. To succeed JR needs to escape from his friends and make his own way. This is a most enjoyable read."
"I don't read a lot of non-fiction (I MAKE myself read something every summer), and memoir is my least favorite type in this genre. I just find it so often unbelievably dramatic or annoyingly whiny. This book, however, is intelligently and poignantly written, and very honest! The author, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, struggles from an early age to replace the father who abandons him and finds the stable "home" he is looking for in, of all places, the bar where his uncle works. A bonus is that it is full of men who provide him with the feelings of acceptance and support he needs, and eventually the bar itself becomes his sanctuary, as it symbolizes the saftey net for all his failures. At one point, when he is junior high age or so, one of his many mentors in the book berates him,"I hate when when people ask me what a book is about. People who read for plot...should stick to comic books and soap operas. Every book worth a damn is about emotions and love and death and pain. It's about words. It's about a man dealing with life. Okay?" This is certainly what JR Moehringer's book is "about," and while it may take him a long time to overcome his lack of self-confidence and dependence on the bar, when he achieves his independence, you can't help but feel proud of him. He is a word master and the book is full of subtle allusions to Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Shakespeare and others, which I found delightful!"
"In a place that inspired Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, young J. R. Moehringer lives with his single mother and mercurial grandfather in a cramped home with a rather-too-colorful cast of strident aunts, down-on-their-luck uncles, and their various offspring. It is 1970s Manhasset, Long Island, and J.R. is lonely and adrift. Desperate to escape, J.R.'s mother takes him on long drives, where his dreams are fueled by the sight of the deep, plush lawns and dazzling, gated mansions that served as Fitzgerald's East Egg. But it is J.R.'s introduction to the local pub and its vibrant constellation of characters that would have the greatest effect on him. A panoply of discordant human notes, by turns raucous, witty, vulgar, and wise, these men -- who never quite grew up themselves -- became, for the forlorn young J.R., a veritable symphony of human succor and safety. As J.R. becomes a man, however, he realizes that the bar doesn't grant wishes as much as fill needs in a place where accepting the inevitability of failure is a defense against future disappointment.A keenly heartfelt memoir by a writer who has been deemed "the best memoirist of his kind since Mary Karr," The Tender Bar is filled with insight into the most fundamental human longings. Before J.R. can grasp such insight though, he is forced to face the truth -- about others and, most important, about himself
Totally unexpected great read! A 4 out of 5. Loved the characters and the author's description of his upbringing and his dysfunctional family."
"I probably would have given this book 3.5 stars if I had the option. I really enjoyed it and found it a fast paced, interesting read. I didn't feel like JR was whining the whole time, as some others did, but that he was just kind of a soft, annoying kid.
Inadvertently the last two books I read were about alcoholism and they couldn't have addressed the topic differently. First was Malcolm Lowery and his epic, hugely literate Under the Volcano and now Moehringer's attempt at the classic american memoir, Under the Volcano.
A lot of this book struck really close to home for me. I also spent every moment of me free time in bars throughout my 20's. I also came to the conclusion about a year ago that drinking and trying were mutually exclusive, for me. I understand how strongly JR felt about Publicans, I've felt like that about a couple of different bars over the course of the years, like everything was fine as soon as I walked in the door.
Anyways, it's a good quick read and JR references a ton of different authors and books, mainly American classics which I enjoyed."
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