J. R. Moehringer

I read about this book in a menu.
No kidding.
There's a great sushi joint in town called Miya's that has a menu with facetious descriptions of food, stories on how dishes and drinks came to be, and even footnotes and an epilogue. Most fun menu I know- even better than the color-you-own ones.
And in this menu. _The Tender Bar_ was mentioned as "a short story" where the son of a single mother grows up in a bar using the men around him as the father figure (collectively) he doesn't have. This intrigued me and I saw the possibilty of a puppet piece coming from it, and so I marched my butt to Strand's the next time I was in the City and looked for a short story collection containing _The Tender Bar_.
Low, and behold, it was a 368-page hardback memoir, but it was on the sale table and I was on a mission, so it went home with me.
The book is not what I expected, not what I wanted, and so I hated it. But I could never really get up the steam I needed to really let that hatred set in because I was turning pages rapidly (for me, at least), chuckling and weeping (shh- don't tell).
Moeringer has such a clear remembrance of so many events, such clarity on what he felt and how to say it, even as a very young child, that I often wondered if I was reading the next LeRoy. But I didn't care too much, because I wanted to believe it and, ultimately, it didn't affect me one way or another if it was completely true, mostly true, or inspired by truth.
The book has unlovable, unlikeable characters who Moehringer manager to have me empathizing with even though their behavior is despicable. Fromt he outside, I saw that if this one character, Grandpa, had been different, that everything else, all the horrid things that happened and the terrible way people treated each other and their self-destructive behaviors could have been different, and probably better in some cases. ANd yet, I found myself saying, "Poor Fella" as I saw little acts of humanity in him.
It is not a nice, neat book.
It's a heartbreaker that goes on and on with little mendings and perpetual chipping away at J.R.'s heart- and mine. And then, it's about what happens after your heart breaks wide open and you're still alive.
The book is not always well-paced, and drags significantly in parts. I can't tell if that is the author trying to convey how his life was also dragging interminably at that time, or poor editing. And if you can stomach the heartache, it's surely a quick-ish read: no dense concepts, no giant vocab.
And despite the realtvely short time I spent reading it (under a week?), I sometimes find myself thinking about "that guy I knew, the one who hung out at the bar a lot and kept that kid out of trouble"-- and then I realize I am thinking about his very, very real portrayal of (presumably) real people he loves very much, and I kind of do, too.… (plus d'informations)

The Oprah Magazine (which I've never read) says "Will steal your heart." It was right. I was thoroughly engrossed by both the story, and by the character of Willie Sutton.

Mr. Moehringer has written Willie as a sympathetic character -- someone who tried to be good but circumstances kept getting in his way. Someone who loved to read and educate himself. Someone devoted for life to his one, true love. A folk hero who robbed the evil banks and never hurt a regular person. Maybe not an accurate portrayal (Willie Sutton was a real person), but it worked in the novel.

The late scene with Kate broke my heart. The final chapter where Reporter is looking back over things was anti-climatic in comparison, but it brought closure for Reporter, and showed how Willie's infamy had come to an end.

So well written. It grabbed me from the beginning. Life in the 1920s and 30s in New York was so well described, as were the prison conditions Willie endured. A truly great read!… (plus d'informations)

Autobio of a guy growing up poor in Manhasset, in the shadow of a famous bar. The first part of this book is terrific — beautifully written, evocative, touching, funny. Lots of interesting tidbits about Long Island too. Once JR, the protagonist, gets old enough to actually frequent the bar himself it became less interesting. Certainly the characters inhabiting the bar are fun and well-depicted, but none of them are as interesting as that of JR's mother, who is — sadly — largely absent from the second half of the book. In the end, it all felt a little shallow, as a seemingly-profound drunken conversation tends to be.… (plus d'informations)