The Alcoholic Book

I love that when you type 'alcoholic' in the search box, two Bukowsi books that don't have the word 'alcoholic' in their titles come up before anything else.

Anyway, I like Jonathan Ames. You like Jonathan Ames, right? We all like Jonathan Ames. Just like all of us, he grew up in New Jersey and then moved to New York. (well, maybe not all of us. Most of us though.) I haven't read all his books and, honestly, the most interesting thing to me (well duh) is how trans women continuously pop up in his books, and in a way that doesn't ever seem to reveal anything, except that, like, 'hi, I'm Jonathan Ames, and trans women are in my life.'

So that happened for a minute in this one.

I liked it. It's definitely a weird little book- a bildungsroman (I WENT TO COLLEGE) all about the bildungs of addiction, with an (spoiler) ambiguous/pessimistic non-ending, where some stuff happens but really just a bunch of sorrows get drowned.

Remember when I told you that I didn't think Jesus' Son resonated like it was about real addicts? Like how that thing seemed much more to be about, like, what if addiction were grimy-glamorous? There is something apologetic, meek, and self-implosive going on in this one that resonates with me way harder.

Are you listening to me? JONATHAN AMES IS BETTER THAN DENIS JOHNSON.

And, I mean, it's a graphic novel, which means you can read it in a night, which is always a plus for me. The art is, I don't know, functional? I'm not in love with this artist, but it's definitely expressive without being intrusive or obnoxious. I guess 'functional' is kind of a fucked up thing to say about somebody's art; all I mean is that it's not the art that made me like this book, it's the story.

I dunno. Sarah Goff, are you on goodreads? I can't remember. But you're the one with the boner for Jonathan Ames and graphic novels. Did you like this thing?