Review by Booklist Review
Drinking memoirs generally fall into two categories: Never again and Pour me another. Schaap, who writes the Drink column for the New York Times Magazine, has composed one of the latter, an ode to the great tradition of regularhood advocating equal regularhood rights for women. From her teenage discovery of the bar car on the Metro-North New Haven Line; to her college years at the Pig, in North Bennington, Vermont; to a marriage-ending epiphany at Else's, in Montreal, Schaap charts her path from adolescence to adulthood, bar by bar, sometimes having a few too many but always finding the sense of community and belonging she clearly craves. Early passages can seem a bit naive, as when she suggests bars' negative depiction in popular culture (what about Cheers?) or when she just can't understand what her friends and family have against her new pals from the bar. But, as her remembered self ages, deeper and richer insights emerge. Ultimately, this is as much about growing up in bars as it is growing out of them.--Graff, Keir Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Schaap, a writer who writes the "Drink" column for the New York Times, sought out an early kinship with adult company and alcohol, a lifelong pursuit she fondly chronicles as she recounts the homes and families she's made in bars around the world. With an absentee father and a complicated relationship with her mother, she gets satisfaction from the interest other adults took in her, utilizing that dynamic when she briefly becomes a tarot card reader as a teen in the bar car of the Metro North commuter train, trading readings for beers. Feeling out of place at home and at school, she drops out at 16 to follow the Grateful Dead full-time, ending up on the West Coast. In college at 19, she goes to Dublin for a summer study abroad and it's there, at a cozy, smoky bar frequented by writers and storytellers, that Schaap feels the sense of belonging and community she's been thirsting for. Back in the U.S., she discovers bars near school in Vermont and later in New York that offer a "safe haven, my breathing space... where I figured out how to be myself." Feeling like a regular matters to her, providing her with an anchor and a code of kindness and decency to live by learned from how patrons and bartenders treats one other. Schaap estimates she's passed 13,000 hours in bars, and judging by the warmth and camaraderie she evokes, it clearly has been time well spent. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A memoir from This American Life contributor and New York Times Magazine "Drink" columnist Schaap. The author extolls the pleasures of "bar regularhood," focusing on those establishments with distinct atmospheres--sometimes evoking European cafe societies, other times fondly portraying out-of-the-way places with colorful owners--to demonstrate how they can serve as "relief from isolation," a "refuge from the too-deep and too-personal," and a means for broadening one's ability to listen and empathize with others. Schaap briefly acknowledges the negative aspects, especially for women who frequent bars alone, but she paints a mostly romantic portrait of discovering friendship and conviviality that is gradually tempered over time. Each chapter recounts her experiences in a particular bar--often in New York, with excursions to Dublin as well as Montreal--as touchstones that allow her to explore major turning points, from being a teenager who dropped out of high school and became a Deadhead to becoming a student at Bennington College, finding love, working as a chaplain in the aftermath of 9/11, as well as her father's death, separation and bartending in the present. Schaap suggests that early trials served as catalysts for seeking company away from home, though she admits that the need for regularhood lessened with age. The author only briefly touches on alcoholism, one possible explanation for the hundreds of hours spent in bars; what remains is a brisk, lucid account of finding a tenuous peace after a period of escapism. The conclusions reached are familiar, but Schaap's talent for balancing self-revelation with humor, melancholy and wisdom turn an otherwise niche topic into one with greater appeal.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
