Parched (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "It was September 1986, right after I'd returned to Boston from my week in Nashville, when my mother started calling to badger me about the..." (more)
Key Phrases: New Hampshire, The Cave, Merrimac Street (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following a series of memoirs detailing struggles with alcoholism (Smashed; Dry), NPR commentator King chronicles her 20 years as an alcoholic before her family's intervention led to sobriety. Written with a New Englander's wry sense of humor, King recounts her childhood in a small New Hampshire town with her six siblings and her parents' struggle to support the family. Entering her teenage years during the '60s, King experimented with drugs and alcohol, slowly coming to crave "that warm, comforting glow." After seven years in college, King moved to Boston, where her alcoholism gained momentum in the city's many bars, and despite her dream to write she moved from one waitressing job to another, surprisingly getting her law degree while in a state of perpetual inebriation. King's tales from her Boston rooming house detail such wonders as the communal bathroom ("walls were splotched with blood") and the residents ("drunks, drug addicts, paranoid schizophrenics... [they] were a colorful lot"). The Bible verses that begin each chapter give an uneasy sense of impending proselytism, but not until the epilogue do readers discover King's Catholic faith. While entertaining and witty, this memoir offers no new revelations about an alcoholic's life and will mainly interest those sharing King's Northeast roots.
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Product Description

One woman's journey to the bottom of the bottle-and back again.

In this moving, emotionally charged, and unflinching look at alcoholism and its effects, lawyer and prominent National Public Radio writer and commentator Heather King describes her twenty-year-long descent into the depths of addiction with wit and candor. King went from a highly functioning alcoholic who managed to maintain her grip on reality to living in the lowest of dive bars, drinking around the clock and barely sustaining an existence. With help from the most unexpected source, King stopped her self-destructive spiral and changed her world for the better. This is the poignant, painfully honest, and inspirational true story of a woman who looked into the abyss, and was able to step back from the edge and reclaim her life on her own terms.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Chamberlain Bros. (May 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596090812
• ISBN-13: 978-1596090811
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #902,605 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Parched - a story of misery...and redemption, June 29, 2005

By	James A. Testa "www.jerseybeat.com" (Weehawken, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

You probably don't know the name Heather King, unless you've heard some of her commentaries on NPR radio or read her essays in magazines. But I'm guessing you've heard of her little brother, Joe King, aka Joe Queer. Parched is an autobiography in which Heather King tells the story of her life and her decades-long addiction to alcohol. Its brutally frank, and remarkably detailed; clearly, even when she was drinking herself to death, Heather kept detailed journals. The story starts in her white-trash home in New Hampshire, then moves to Boston. It's an amazing story-even when she was drinking all the time, Heather managed to graduate from college with honors, finish law school, and pass the bar exam on her first try (it took John F. Kenney Jr., presumably clean and sober, three or four attempts, as I recall.) But although she was clear gifted and intelligent (and, as this book proves, had the makings of an author in her,) Heather was never able to move on with anything, including her law degree, until a family intervention forced her to face her problem and enter rehab. Through it all-the blackouts, the casual meaningless sex, the demeaning day jobs waitressing in dive restaurants-there's humor and humanity, and as colorful a cast of characters as you'll find in any book this year. The book ends with Heather finding sobriety, and there's at least one more book about the years since - finding her way back to practicing law, to becoming a writer, to NPR, and to finishing this book. I can't wait for the sequel. - Jim Testa

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Parched" satiates the soul in this provocative alcoholic memoir, January 2, 2006

By	Heather H. Nelson "montana mama" (Bozeman, MT) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Heather King has written my favorite story in what I affectionately call "the booze books." Her beautiful writing coupled with unflinching and heartbreaking honesty make this memoir hard to put down. I copied the final paragraph and taped it in my car as a reminder of where she (and I) come from. It is nothing short of astonishing and far superior to A Million Little Pieces--overrated that it is. No gimmicks needed here--the pain, the compassion, the revelation of a remarkable woman who has truly lived two lifetimes in one. I wanted to hug her at the end and thank her for helping so many who've been in the trenches and survived.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dry Rot, August 8, 2007

By	Melanie Gilbert (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Parched (Paperback)

Most addiction memoirs share a common theme: look at me. But not Heather King's bittersweet, "Parched." On every page she seems to say, "look away. There's nothing to see here."

Addiction memoirs also share another common theme: It's not my fault. Except King doesn't play the blame game. She doesn't blame an alcoholic home, childhood sexual abuse, a bad relationship, a catastrophic illness or event, unmet expectations or a reckless youth. She completely self-destructs under her own power.

Finally, addiction memoirs usually have this in common: I am pathetic; feel sorry for me. King knows she's pathetic and she not only doesn't feel sorry for herself, she refuses to allow the reader to indulge in a pity party, either.

King writes from such a shocking and hard perspective that her story caught me off-balance. In fact, I felt a little punch-drunk, stumbling along with her as she careened from one unfathomable disaster to another. I've never felt so inside an addiction story. It is what it is, she seems to say. And what it is is ugly.

Yet, a profound sense of shame anchors this book. And her feeling of unworthiness is palatable even if it is inexplicable - this is a woman who graduated with honors from law school despite being chronically drunk. This is not a memoir masquerading as an explanation, or a boast, or revenge or even as a triumph. It is a memoir written as a stark confession. "Parched" is an intimate exploration of recovery through forgiveness.