Escapes and Pleasures
Escapes and Pleasures
My friend Sean McLaughlin and I were walking out of a Nats’ baseball game about a week ago when he mentioned he was reading a book he thought I’d enjoy, The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer. Since Sean had suggested a number of months ago that I read Brooklyn, which I did and enjoyed, I paid attention and have just finished this new recommendation.
Having just completed thirteen, yes 13, Lee Child’s suspense novels, or probably what one might call the male equivalent of ‘Chick Lit,’ I was clearly ready for something quite different.
Sean was right, again, and thus I am also, again, taking the liberty of encouraging MillersTime readers to consider a book, one quite different from the Lee Child’s spell binders.
I particularly recommend it to male readers over the age of 30. And while I think The Tender Bar is not just a male ‘read,’ I think many of the male readers of MillersTime will find it absorbing and real.
Moehringer’s memoir is one of those rare books about oneself and one’s life that can truly be said to be an engrossing story, beautifully written and brutally honest. I can only think offhand of two such memoirs that I’ve read that I would put in this same category -- Kay Redfield Jamison’s recent Nothing Was the Same and Moritz Thomsen’s The Saddest Pleasure (both of which are on my favorite all time list, and ones I would also highly recommend.)
Briefly, tho I don’t think this summary will capture what is so wonderful about Moehringer’s The Tender Bar, it tells the story of the author’s growing up in Manhasset, Long Island with his mother and grandparents and his substitution of a group of men who virtually lived at a local bar for his absent father.
I do not want to go further than that as I think anything more could be both a spoiler as well as an inadequate attempt to capture what is a good story, good storytelling, and fine writing.
Add it to your ‘to read’ list.
I think you will be glad you did.
8/18/10
A BOOK THAT GUYS OVER 30 WILL ENJOY