Drinking Closer to Home: A Novel (P.S.) [Kindle Edition]

Jessica Anya Blau (Author)

Book Description

“Riveting and startling….So raw and funny I wanted to read parts aloud to strangers.” —Dylan Landis, author of Normal People Don't Live Like This

“Jessica Anya Blau…creates characters that have a lot more depth and more of a past than one often sees in fiction these days…. I found it impossible not to care about them—and equally impossible to forget them. Blau is a magnificent writer, and this is one special novel.” —Steve Yarbrough, author of Safe from the Neighbors

From Jessica Anya Blau, critically-acclaimed author of The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, comes a new novel of California, growing up, and learning to love your insane family. Perfect for fans of Jess Walter, Kevin Wilson, and Michael Chabon, Drinking Closer to Home is a poignant and funny exploration of one family’s over-the-top eccentricities—a book Ron Tanner calls “heartfelt and hilarious.”

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Blau's second novel (after The Summer of Naked Swim Parties) revolves around a family in crisis after a mother's debilitating heart attack. The troubled adult children of Buzzy and Louise come home to visit their parents on their hippie ranch in Santa Barbara, Cal., "where the days are so sunny you'd swear a nuclear reactor had exploded." Sisters Anna and Portia, and brother Emery, recall the events that led them to their restless present. Emery and his partner, Alejandro, tip-toe around the topic of asking a sister to donate eggs so that they can have a child. During their week-long visit everyone must deal with uncomfortable details about their parents' personal lives, as well as the ghosts of the people they once were, wishing that they could leave their childhood wounds behind once and for all. Blau writes funny, often heartbreaking, and always relatable anecdotes. She aptly describes the family visiting Louise in the hospital: "every day, a moment comes when someone can no longer take sitting in the beeping, stinking room." Blau's lifelike characters are such a joy to get to know that one feels sorry to leave them behind.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The bohemian Southern California Stein family faces a crisis when its matriarch, Louise, suffers a massive heart attack. The three adult children, Anna, Portia, and Emery, return home to hold vigil and commiserate over their unusual upbringing, recalling Louise’s fondness for frequenting the nude beach; her pot habit, which inspired their father to devote his avid gardening skills to cultivating a deluxe homegrown version in their backyard; and Louise’s abdication of her parental role when she gave Emery’s care over to Portia, then age eight. All three have suffered from being raised in a chaotic environment. Anna is chronically unfaithful to her husband, eyeing every male stranger as a potential bedmate. Portia struggles to recover her self-esteem in the wake of her husband’s desertion. Emery, happily in love with his soul mate, Alejandro, has become obsessed with domesticity. Blau uses every trick in a writer’s arsenal to make readers care about this flawed, very human family. From painful humor to poignant scene-setting, she takes no prisoners in her candid look at an unconventional clan. --Joanne Wilkinson

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 684 KB
• Print Length: 337 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books (January 18, 2011)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004GB1XCS
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40,753 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down! February 10, 2011

By Alison's VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I was at once appalled and in love with this quirky family!

Anna, Portia and Emery are summoned back home when their mother, Louise, has a massive heart attack. During Louise's time in the hospital recovering, the three children reminisce about their childhood, their odd parents, Buzzy and Louise, their even odder extended family and where the road has taken them.

"It has only been recently that Anna forgave her mother for a litany of crimes Anna had been carrying in her stomach like a knotted squid."

As soon as I started reading Drinking Closer to Home, it felt so much like a memoir, I had to look at the copyright page just to make sure that it said "fiction" at the front. At the end of the book, the author interviews her own family, on whom the characters are based. What happens in between is pure magic.

Oh, how I cringed! Oh, how I laughed! Oh, how I felt compelled to turn the pages!

The very things that might make another family miserable are the very things that make this family work. The prolific swearing, the filthy house, and the unabashed drug use made me want to read the pages with my eyes half closed while learning about this crazy family. The humor, the brutal honesty, and the love made me want to want to be a part of it.

There were several scenes in the book that made me laugh out loud. There was one part in the book where we flashback to 1976 and the kids were visiting their grandparents Otto and Billie.

"Emory was hovering nearby, hiding himself from Otto, who had publicly called him Sissy Boy at least three times in the last hour. Emery thought that if only his grandfather could see the singing and dancing extravaganza of the Corny Kids Variety Show, he'd never call Emery a sissy again."

Emery was my favorite character in the book. He was embarrassed by his family, but didn't like being on the outside of things either. His struggle with his identity both in and out of his family moved me deeply.

All of the characters in this book were, in a word, colorful!

If you enjoyed The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, you will fall head over heels backward in love drunk with Drinking Closer to Home by Jessica Anya Blau.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Love it! March 7, 2011

By Elizabeth Hazen

Format:Paperback

In Drinking Closer to Home, Jessica Anya Blau paints a vivid, painful, and funny portrait of three siblings and their parents. The family members are all damaged, in part due to their unconventional family life, yet they remain fiercely loyal to one another. The book is riveting - I stayed awake late into the night reading (not something I usually do) because I wanted to find out what the characters would do next. What is most amazing about the book, though, is not the recklessness of the characters' behavior or the outrageousness of the situations they find themselves in (nor is it the detailed imagery and accuracy with which Blau brings the scenes to life, though this is impressive, too); rather, it is Blau's ability to make these wild characters so compelling and so real; nothing in this novel feels inauthentic or exaggerated, but at the same time I could not have predicted or imagined any of it. This is a really great book by a really great author - I recommend it wholeheartedly!

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Family Dysfunction at its worst March 24, 2011

By Staci VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Well, this will be a short and sweet (maybe not) review...reason being...I just did not care for this book. I found the parents to be narcissistic, neglectful, and frankly, they pissed me off with their behavior. I tried to lighten up and just enjoy this read, but I couldn't. My favorite character and the one that I felt a lot of sympathy for was Emery. He was basically raised by his sisters and really just went about his life. I loved watching him grow into a responsible and loving adult. I will admit to laughing a few times throughout the story, but I guess because I work in a school and see neglect firsthand, I just couldn't accept the almost blatant disregard the parents had for their children and enjoy myself. Others absolutely LOVED this book and found it funny and readable. I found it funny at times, but a painful funny. With all of that being said, I respect the work that the author put into her story and just because it wasn't my cup of tea doesn't mean that you wouldn't enjoy it!

More About the Author

Jessica Anya Blau's second novel, DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME, has just been released to rave reviews. Novelist Irina Reyn calls it, "Unrelentingly, sidesplittingly funny." The Austin Chronicle says that, "The domestic relationships in the book are brilliantly rendered, a contemporary California version of Philip Roth." Author Dylan Landis says the book is, "So raw and funny I wanted to read parts aloud to strangers."

Jessica'a first novel, THE SUMMER OF NAKED SWIM PARTIES, was chosen as a Top Ten Summer Read by the Today Show, The New York Post and New York Magazine. Cosmo called it a "Sexy Summer Read!" The San Francisco Chronicle and the Rocky Mountain News chose THE SUMMER OF NAKED SWIM PARTIES as a Best Book of the Year!

Here is Jessica's Biography With Dogs:

Jessica was born in Boston. Her father was a graduate student and her mother was staying home with Jessica and her older sister, Becca. They had a dog named Growlie. Jessica doesn't remember Growlie. They also had an old Chevie that Jessica's parents bought for twenty-five dollars. The Chevie had a hole in the floor. Jessica doesn't remember the car or the hole, but she thinks about that hole often--how cool it would be to look down and see the road swooshing by like a fast-moving stream.

When the family moved to Southern California (Jessica now had a little brother, Josh), they adopted a dog named Mitzi. Mitzi was old and grey. She looked like a dog who would hang out in a bar, drink whiskey and chain smoke unfiltered cigarettes. She looked like she'd have a raspy, barking laugh that would disintegrate into a cough. Mitzi gave birth to a litter of pups. They were all black except one, Gumba, who grew to resemble a matted, orange shag rug. Josh carried Gumba around whenever he could and he often dropped her on her head. This is why, the family thinks, Gumba was so dumb. Gumba was like the girl in the neighborhood who would do anything you told her to do. If you told her to eat a snail off the sidewalk, she'd pop that snail in her mouth then follow you down the street chomping the shell that made noises louder than potato chips. Mitzi ran off into the lemon orchard behind Jessica's house sometime after Gumba was born. It was assumed she died there. Gumba died of old age when Jessica was in college. This was very sad for everyone. Even though Gumba was a very dumb girl, she was a loveable dumb girl.

Before Gumba died, Jessica and a boyfriend impulsively got a dog named Fritz who looked like a smallish German Sheppard. Fritz was a girl, but they liked the name. They took Fritz to Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri where they were camp counselors for the summer. When they returned they give Fritz to Jessica's mother who loved her well until her death of old age.

After college, Jessica and her new husband (who were living in Berkeley where they went to school) got a black lab named Giusi. The dog was named after a guy they met in Italy who had a daughter named Giusi. Giusi galloped around the house like a wild mustang, slept on the white couch when they were out of the house and chewed furniture. When they moved to Canada they gave the dog to an uncle in Ventura to keep until they had found a house. The dog ran away before they found the house and neither Jessica or her husband were too sad about it (although they both hoped that the dog was happily frolicking on the beach and chewing driftwood).

In Canada Jessica started writing for the first time in her life. She also got a dog named Moses. Moses was black and sleek and had a hound's yowl. Jessica loved Moses in spite of the fact that he chewed the legs of the kitchen chairs and once chewed through a seatbelt and a seat in the car. Moses was the fastest runner in Withrow Park in Toronto. Each time a group of dog owners stood at the top of the hill for dog races, each owner throwing a ball for their dog, Moses would win (there are other dogs and dog owners who would disagree with this, but this isn't their bio page--whoever types it first gets the last word). When Jessica had a baby, she and her husband gave away Moses to a man who ran every morning and wanted a running partner in dog form. The other dog owners in the park thought it was creepy that Jessica and her husband traded in the dog for a baby. Some of them gossiped about it. Jessica ignored them.

When she lived in Baltimore (where she went to graduate school at Johns Hopkins) with her second husband, David, Jessica thought it was time for a new dog. A friend gave her giant, horsey, black lab named Jordan. Jessica's younger daughter looked at Jordan and said in her tiny, baby voice, "You're not Jordan, you're Georgie." Georgie was faithful and kind and let the kid who named her ride on her back and slide across the wood floor while hanging on to her tail. She was old when they got her, and very old when she died on her favorite down sleeping bag in the middle of the living room where she had insisted on spending her final days. Before Georgie died, Jessica wanted a transitional dog for Georgie to train. She figured the new dog would do whatever Georgie did, and Georgie was a perfectly behaved lady. David was resistant to a new dog, but on Hanukah (before Georgie died), David's brother, Ira, gave Jessica a small, white, toy poodle named Pippa. The whole family, including Georgie but not including David, fell in love with her. David didn't like her because he thought poodles were showy and embarrassing. After her first haircut, Jessica and Pippa were frolicking on the front lawn. When David pulled up in the car and saw the pink bows in Pippa's hair and the way her legs and tail were shaved, he backed up and drove away. Pippa has never had a haircut like that since. After Georgie died, David grew to love Pippa like a daughter. Or not quite a daughter. Maybe the way you'd love your best friend's daughter.

One Christmas, Jessica's mother's dog, a giant Rottweiler-Sheppard mix took a bite out of Pippa's head and punctured her eye which now looks like a foggy, blue marble. Pippa has become increasingly neurotic since losing the eye. The list of things she won't do has grown to this: Won't walk up or down the stairs. Won't walk past anything shiny or reflective (like the kitchen trash can). Won't walk over sewer grates. Won't let strange men pet her. Won't let big dogs sniff her butt. Jessica doesn't think the butt-sniff is much of a loss, but she finds it terribly inconvenient to have to carry the dog up and down the steps. Jessica hopes one day to get one of those old-lady chairs that ride the stairs. It would have to be non-reflective and not resemble a sewer grate, a strange man, or a big dog so that Pippa would be willing to use it.