Dry

Dry, by Augusten Burroughs

After reading about his childhood experience in Running with Scissors, I was intrigued to find out what Augusten did with his life afterward. Having read his first memoir, I was not all that surprised in his second one to learn he became a heavy drinker. While the writing was less graphic this time around, his content was still what you would expect. Burroughs remains the best-selling writer that can keep you entertained and laughing, even during his period with alcoholism and treatment.

After being abandoned by his mother with her psychiatrist who later adopted him and living in a “life of squalor, pedophiles, no school and free pills,” Augusten left for New York. At the age of 19, he was able to sell him self as self-educated and determined, landing him a job in advertising. By the age of 24, when this memoir takes place, Augusten is drinking a little too much. When his drinking starts to cause problems at work with his partner when trying to land a Faberge egg account, his boss gives him an option. He can either go to rehab or lose his job. Augusten chooses rehab, thinking it will just be a month with no work and movie star glamour at a gay rehab center called the Pride Institute. It is in these thirty days that Augusten realizes he truly was an alcoholic and not just the casual New York drinker he thought everyone in advertising was. During therapy, Augusten realizes that his reason for drinking is in order to not feel everything that he has to deal with. And this is all in the first few chapters. The rest of the memoir involves Augusten’s struggle to return to the life he lived drunk and try to live it sober. This is not made easier when his best friend is sick, a friend from rehab moves in, and Augusten becomes attracted to a man in group therapy (where he signed a contract not to get romantically involved with anyone). And then there is also his job. His agency is working on a campaign for German beer and to top it off, someone from the office seems to be messing with him so he will lose his job. Will Augusten learn to deal with his new sober lifestyle or is everything just too much to keep him from drinking again? All of this at the age of 24.

I’ll admit that his first memoir was pretty explicit, but this work is tamer in its descriptions while still keeping it fascinating. When starting the novel, I expected his time in rehab to be the majority of the book, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn about what happens after when you are on your own. One doesn’t need to read the first memoir to understand this work since Burroughs returns to his past when necessary to better understand what he is trying to deal with. His writing remains interesting throughout the whole, and readers will find themselves emotionally reacting to what Burroughs presents during his tug-of-war struggle with drinking, as well as everything else in his life with which he has to deal.

This is another work where I would only recommend to a certain type of reader. And though I said you can get by without reading Running with Scissors, I would still read it first to get the whole chronological effect of the experience. Augusten Burroughs definitely encounters some interesting characters in his life and you will love what he has to say about them.

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
- Groucho Marx