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Home » Culture and Criticism

Dry: A Memoir

Submitted by on March 5, 2007 – 1:47 AMNo Comment

Like I did Running With Scissors, I read this in one day, and I love his writing; it’s so conversational and clean, like a friend’s house where everything is just so, but lived in, too.   But the last, say, quarter of the book kind of bothered me.   It felt rushed, and I wasn’t sure what to make of his self-absorption re: Pighead.   Is the part at the end supposed to make us feel sorry for him?   Are we meant to think he’s, at bottom, still a bit of a dick?   I don’t need everything wrapped up in a bow for me here, but the writing in the last part is also a bit…I don’t know.   Not stilted, just kind of…not invested.   Show-offy, like admiring your own handwriting in your journal.   In a book that hadn’t started as strongly, this wouldn’t have bugged me, but it’s just a little weird.   I really did like the book, though.   (11/14/05)

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