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It’s the end of Thanksgiving weekend, and for many of us, that means a slow, painful recovery back into the work week. The holidays can be lovely, but they can also remind us of the cycle of indulgence and regret many experience year-round with alcohol and drugs. This week’s book club features three new books about stories of bingeing and addiction, with the pain and self-recrimination of those mornings after. They give us sociological background on the phenomenon, and the stories of individuals who struggled against addiction to, thankfully, find peace without it.
<em>Hungover: The Morning After and One Man’s Quest for the Cure</em>
The word hangover, writes Amazon First Novel Award nominee Bishop-Stall, “is one of the youngest words in the English lexicon.” Dating back only about 100 years, the word is now synonymous with that horrible, head-pounding, wooly-mouthed, intensely nauseated feeling that you only hope the night before was worth. Bishop-Stall, who has embarked on previous ambitious writing projects, such as living for a year with the homeless, goes on a journey through the concept of the hangover and the lengths to which people have gone to cure it.
<em>The Perpetual Motion Machine</em>
Originating from Ackerman’s MFA thesis from Florida Atlantic University, the book is a short, essay-based memoir of her life and relationship with her parents and older brother Skyler. From a somewhat idyllic childhood, issues began to crop up that began to give her Ackerman the idea that all was not quite as well as it seemed. Her parents began to do unpredictable things, fighting and issuing visceral threats, like her mother’s desire to plunge their car into the Hudson River. Ackerman details a childhood moment where her mother insisted her brother take on too much speed at the skating rink, using oversized skates, that led to his very public injury; all Ackerman could focus on was that the family’s flight in the wake of the accident tore her away from the promise of a snack stand’s square piece of pizza.
<em>The Spiritual Vixen’s Guide to an Unapologetic Life</em>
“The end is an odd way to start a story, but it was actually the end where it all began. It’s funny now, because I didn’t know it was the beginning. I would have bent all I had that it was the end. It had all the markings of the end: the silence, the pain, the separation, the secrets, the terrible tumble down feeling of it all. I stood with my young son in the midst of a New York winter storm, snowflakes melting on our upturned faces as we gazed toward the moon over Central Park. The year was closing out with the patchwork of other people’s conversations as they passed by with boxes and bags and bottles. The urban orchestra of cabs and car horns and the trotting of horses, the jiggle of car keys, the rattle of tin can change, and the enthusiastic bells of the Army of Salvation Santas collecting cans for the less fortunate. All of this music playing against the crackle of snow falling. It wrapped its way around me, but did little to eliminate the deep dread I felt as I contemplated the New Year on the horizon.”
