Pour Me, a Life

May 30, 2016
British journalist Gill lays everything on the line in this honest, if disjointed, memoir of a drinking life. His readers are used to his biting wit and endless jabs in the Sunday Times, but this may be the first time his barbs are so publicly pointed at himself. Through the shards of his own jagged memory, Gill describes piecing together his life after subjecting his body to drugs and alcohol. The story skips around between “the end of a marriage and the end of drinking.” His last drink was decades ago on his way to rehab: a glass of Champagne with his father. Drinking strips away memory, so the timing of events is askew, with individual scenes like “fragments from sagas found stuffed in a mattress,” but when Gill locks into a moment, especially one from his years as a young, destructive drunk, readers are brought face to face with a gripping truth. Gill’s story holds up a mirror with which to evaluate one’s own ugly and beautiful jaunts through life. His is not a tale told with a clear beginning, middle, or end; it is, however, chock full of wit and humanity, and enhanced by Gill’s striking gift for prose.

July 15, 2016
Nonlinear reflections on a life blighted by alcoholism.Gutsy British Sunday Times writer Gill's (To America with Love, 2013) brutally honest memoir charts "the year between the end of the marriage and the end of drinking," though the narrative's timeline is as unreliable as the author became when under the influence. During several uninspired, short-lived stints in art school, Gill was negatively influenced by an imprudent Irish vagabond and "the momentum of his hedonism," which led to a drinking life accented with drugs and odious behavior. His encroaching addiction assumed priority over life events such as an ill-fated first marriage, though in their initial courtship, his wife-to-be enabled and romanced him with promises to "always make sure there's beer in the fridge." By the time he reached the age of 30, cursed with debilitating episodes of delirium tremens, blackouts, and a host of chronic physical maladies, Gill found himself in a treatment center with a physician diagnosing imminent death if he didn't cease drinking permanently. The author is at his best when coherently describing his family life growing up, cloaking dyslexia (and his adult guilt at passing it on to three of his four children), his first acid trip, and the art of cooking elaborate, solitary dinners while "dead drunk." The remaining pieces of his life are haphazardly scattered throughout the book. Though this jagged timeline diverts attention from Gill's downward spiral, the anecdotes of what he does remember and his introspection on what it's like to be both a full-blown addict and a recovering one more than make up for the memoir's murky construction. The author's concluding thoughts on hitting rock bottom when "there's nothing left to say and no one left who's listening," his success in critical journalism, and impressions on becoming a "reluctant Christian" create an odd yet strangely fitting coda to a bumpy life. An intensive, uneven, relentlessly blunt take on addiction and recovery.

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August 1, 2016
London-based journalist and author Gill (Here and There, 2012) confesses that due to his debauched youth, his memoir may occasionally stray from hand-on-the-Bible fact. Additionally, he lets us know that we should expect no overarching moral secret to a life redeemed or an uplifting truth. So what, then, is the point? Just this: give an outstanding writer and restaurant-television critic free rein to wax on about what he does and doesn't recall of his life thus far, and the result is pure entertainment. Take it allfrom the sleazy pub he once pretty much called home to the man who eventually grew up and found religionwith a grain of salt on the rim of a virgin margarita, but take it. Because the wit is fresh, even if the sodden story of a reformed alcoholic isn't. And because, after all, there is an uplifting spiritual truth here, whether Gill acknowledges it or not. And although a self-deprecating sense of humor may not be enough to sustain sobriety, it sure can't hurt. A wry and frank report on overcoming addiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)