Model citizen A memoir

After having a stroke, Mohr learns he has a hole in his heart. It's the size of eight dimes stacked together, and through it blood clots have a clear path to his brain. At 35, he's suddenly confronted with the fact that a big stroke will end his life, the life he's fought to build after years of drinking and drugging himself into oblivion. In this searing memoir, Mohr opens up about his alcoholism and drug use with the vigor of someone purging themselves of their darkest memories. He tracks his shifting attitude to his sobriety over time, from a diamond to be protected at all costs to something less precious. There's the shame of the Christmas when he goes on a bender instead of shopping for presents, turning up late with a worn Black Sabbath shirt for his four-year-old sister, but there is also the profound purpose he finds in fatherhood. A potent mix of regret and resilience, Mohr's story confronts his demons while finding a sliver of hope for a better life, however brief.

Novelist Mohr (Termite Parade) chronicles his harrowing addiction story in this unflinching memoir. Mohr's troubles started in childhood when, before the age of 11, his dad abandoned his family and his mother got hooked on pills and alcohol. Mohr began to drop acid before class in high school, didn't take to college as a result of his growing dependencies, and moved to San Francisco, where he got deep into heroin, cocaine, and ketamine. Addiction-fueled chaos followed, with blackouts so deep he would come to miles from where his binge began; one time, he started in San Francisco and woke up 200 miles away at a bar deep in the mountains of Lake Tahoe, Calif., where he had to ask a stranger, "Excuse me, kind sir, can you please tell me where I might be located?" He eventually found lifelines--he went back to school, forged a career as a novelist, got married, and had a daughter who inspired him to get sober. However, he began to suffer strokes in his early 30s, caused by a previously undiagnosed heart condition, and was informed by his doctor that he isn't likely to live past 50. Even so, Mohr notes, "I continue to be the luckiest unlucky person. Even if I only have a few years left alive." It's this haunting threat of a foreshortened life that sets this work apart from traditional addiction memoirs. Mohr's raw account is equally shocking and moving. (Mar.)