Count me as a lifelong fan of this courageous writer.”- Elle MagazineĪugusten Burroughs begins Dry by saying that “sometimes when you work in advertising you’ll get a product that’s really garbage and you have to make it seem fantastic, something that is essential to the continued quality of life.” How does this set the tone for the memoir? Why is advertising an apt metaphor for the story Burroughs tells? I haven’t read anything this sharp, hip, or honest in my life. Without cheapening the hard work and commitment recovery requires, he allows the wry hilarity of his experience to shine brighter than the pain and darkness. “Burroughs is a brilliant writer–wickedly funny, painfully honest, and uber-cool. Dry will make readers glad to have Augusten Burroughs in the world, and eager for more.”- O Magazine

It’s a mark of the depth and wholeness of the person who emerges here that we not only laugh with him but wind up caring deeply as well.

All along the way, this writer’s warmth, honesty and irreverence win our allegiance. “A frank, shockingly hilarious memoir of booze, family, loss, and victory. If anything, Dry is even more compelling than Burroughs’ first outing.”- Lev Grossman, Time “Beneath the quick-flowing, funny-sad surface of Burroughs’ prose lurks considerable complexity: wherever he goes, whatever he’s doing, you can feel how badly he wants to drink–as well as the sadness from which that desire comes and the courage it takes to make the sadness so funny, all at the same time. Burroughs remains adept at mixing comedy and calamity.” Dry is the story of love, loss, and Starbucks as a higher power. What follows is a memoir that’s as moving as it is funny, as heartbreaking as it is real. Because when his thirty days are up, he has to return to his same drunken Manhattan life-and live it sober. But when Augusten is forced to examine himself, something actually starts to click, and that’s when he finds himself in the worst trouble of all. At the request (well, it wasn’t really a request) of his employers, Augusten landed in rehab, where his dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey, Jr., are immediately dashed by the grim reality of fluorescent lighting and paper hospital slippers. Loud, distracting ties, automated wake-up calls, and cologne on the tongue could only hide so much for so long. But when the ordinary person had to drinks, Augusten was circling the drain by having twelve when the ordinary person went home at midnight, Augusten never went home at all. You’ve seen him on the street, in bars, on the subway, at restaurants: a twenty-something guy, nice suit, works in advertising.

You may not know it, but you’ve met Augusten Burroughs.

Dry by augusten burroughs