The Tender Bar: A Memoir

Moehringer, J. R.

ISBN 10 : 1401384838 ISBN 13 : 9781401384838

Editeur : Grand Central Publishing, 2006

Synopsis

The Tender Bar In the rich tradition of bestselling memoirs, "The Tender Bar" is by turns riveting, moving, and achingly funny--an evocative portrait of one boy's struggle to become a man. Abridged. 5 CDs.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

The New York Times bestseller and one of the 100 Most Notable Books of 2005. In the tradition of This Boy's Life and The Liar's Club, a raucous, poignant, luminously written memoir about a boy striving to become a man, and his romance with a bar.
J.R. Moehringer grew up captivated by a voice. It was the voice of his father, a New York City disc jockey who vanished before J.R. spoke his first word. Sitting on the stoop, pressing an ear to the radio, J.R. would strain to hear in that plummy baritone the secrets of masculinity and identity. Though J.R.'s mother was his world, his rock, he craved something more, something faintly and hauntingly audible only in The Voice. At eight years old, suddenly unable to find The Voice on the radio, J.R. turned in desperation to the bar on the corner, where he found a rousing chorus of new voices. The alphas along the bar--including J.R.'s Uncle Charlie, a Humphrey Bogart look-alike; Colt, a Yogi Bear sound-alike; and Joey D, a softhearted brawler--took J.R. to the beach, to ballgames, and ultimately into their circle. They taught J.R., tended him, and provided a kind of fathering-by-committee. Torn between the stirring example of his mother and the lurid romance of the bar, J.R. tried to forge a self somewhere in the center. But when it was time for J.R. to leave home, the bar became an increasingly seductive sanctuary, a place to return and regroup during his picaresque journeys. Time and again the bar offered shelter from failure, rejection, heartbreak--and eventually from reality.
In the grand tradition of landmark memoirs, THE TENDER BAR is suspenseful, wrenching, and achingly funny. A classic American story of self-invention and escape, of the fierce love between a single mother and an only son, it's also a moving portrait of one boy's struggle to become a man, and an unforgettable depiction of how men remain, at heart, lost boys.

Revue de presse

'The best memoirist of his kind since Mary Karr wrote The Liars' Club . . . hilarious stumblebum wisdom and born raconteur's ease. Highly entertaining . . . constructed as skilfully as a drink mixed by the author's Uncle Charlie.' (New York Times)

The best memoirist of his kind since Mary Karr wrote The Liars' Club . . . hilarious stumblebum wisdom and born raconteur's ease. Highly entertaining . . . constructed as skilfully as a drink mixed by the author's Uncle Charlie. (New York Times)

A straight-up account of masculinity, maturity and memory that leaves a smile on the face and an ache in the heart. (Kirkus Reviews)

In his gimlet-eyed memoir, The Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer lovingly and affectingly toasts a boyhood spent on a barstool. (Vanity Fair)

The best thing about The Tender Bar is that it is many stories in one. Moehringer has hours and hours of stories that any bar hound worth his stool would bend both ears to drink in. Thankfully, the writer has opted to put them down on paper. (Entertainment Weekly)

The only thing wrong with this terrific debut is that there has to be a closing time. (Newsweek)

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Grand Central Publishing
• Date d'édition: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1401384838
• ISBN 13: 9781401384838
• Reliure: CD
• Langue: anglais