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Drinking Closer to Home: A Novel, by Jessica Anya Blau
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“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.”
- Sales Rank: #291040 in Books
- Published on: 2011-01-18
- Released on: 2011-01-18
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x .83" w x 5.31" l, .61 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 337 pages
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
Review
“At the end of the day, the Stein family is dysfunctional, foul-mouthed, appalling, loving and ridiculously endearing, thanks to Blau’s hilarious rendition of their group dynamic. Soundtrack? Hotel California. Woody Allen directs.” (Baltimore Sun)
“The domestic relationships . . . are brilliantly rendered, a contemporary California version of Philip Roth.” (Austin Chronicle)
“An entertaining romp through one family’s history.” (Boston Globe)
“A light-hearted, enthralling read that enables us to laugh at our own less-than-perfect families.” (Bust Magazine)
“Blau writes funny, often heartbreaking, and always relatable anecdotes ... [Her] lifelike characters are such a joy to get to know that one feels sorry to leave them behind.” (Publishers Weekly)
“From painful humor to poignant scene-setting, [Blau] takes no prisoners in her candid look at an unconventional clan.” (Booklist)
“Jessica Blau’s second novel is not only a wise and pitch-perfect depiction of family dynamics but also happens to be unrelentingly, side-splittingly funny. I dare you to forget this family.” (Irina Reyn, author of What Happened to Anna K.)
“If you think you’ve read enough novels about mixed up families already, go ahead and read one more. Jessica Anya Blau’s DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME is a phantasmagoric, hilarious carnival ride.” (Madison Smartt Bell)
“Jessica Blau’s DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME is heartfelt and hilarious as it explores every nook and cranny of this wonderful (and wild) family. If you want to know why we love our parents and siblings even as they drive us to drink and distraction, you must read this book.” (Ron Tanner, author of Kiss Me, Stranger)
“The sharpness of Jessica Blau’s voice and wit never ceases to amaze me. From the first page this surprising novel takes a classic tale--adult children going home again--and turns it on its head. An absorbing, heart-wrenching read.” (Katie Crouch, author of Men and Dogs)
“A very funny -- but also deeply humane -- novel . . . Parental love and booze and drugs and all the complications of becoming an adult: This is a smart book -- a book that makes you cringe and laugh out loud.” (Pauls Toutonghi, author of Red Weather)
“If you took Jonathan Franzen, soaked him in Southern California culture, sprinkled him with biting insight and twisted humor, you would get a book that tasted something like DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME.” (Katie Arnoldi, author of Point Dume)
“Jessica Anya Blau has created an unforgettably unique family . . . and done them a great service by placing them in a compelling story that is alternately funny and sad as hell. I don’t think I’d last twelve days in this family, but I could read about them forever.” (Kevin Wilson, author of Tunneling to the Center of the Earth)
“DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME is as raw and heartbreaking as it is tender. Jessica Anya Blau has written an honest, haunting portrayal of a beguiling yet maddening family, who together come of age amidst the shifting morals of a country on the cusp of tremendous cultural change.” (Robin Antalek, author of The Summer We Fell Apart)
“[A] tour de force of a second novel . . . deliciously funny, endearingly naughty, resolutely hopeful, and highly enjoyable. Blau is a masterful storyteller.” (Greg Olear, author of Totally Killer and the forthcoming Fathermucker)
“[Blau has] lavished such attention on these people that I found it impossible not to care about them--and equally impossible to forget them.” (Steve Yarbrough, author of Safe from the Neighbors)
“Hilariously irreverent . . . . This unconventional joy ride of a novel is also an unexpectedly powerful and multi-layered exploration of unbreakable family bonds.” (Gina Frangello, author of Slut Lullabies)
“Jessica Anya Blau’s emotional turf is kinship, from its betrayals to its bonds—and in DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME she covers this territory with an honesty so raw and funny I wanted to read parts aloud to strangers.” (Dylan Landis, author of Normal People Don't Live Like This)
“Chekhov knew that laughter and tears are only a breath apart. So does Jessica Anya Blau. The family in her marvelous DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME . . . make[s] beautiful, hilarious music through time and all the spaces in the heart.” (James Magruder, author of Sugarless)
“DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME is a gloriously rich portrait of three adult children who discover that the tensions and hurts they still have between them are inextricably tied to their laughter and their love.” (Susan Henderson, author of Up From the Blue)
“[H]ilarious and heartbreaking....[A] testament to the impossibility of ever truly ‘leaving home,’ and the great triumph of this book is in Blau’s skillful illumination of how that’s both a blessing and a curse....This novel will stay with you for a very long time.” (Skip Horack, author of The Southern Cross and The Eden Hunter)
“As perfectly pitched as it is comically painful, DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME echoes a profound Tolstoyan truth about family. Many novelists have a sense for place, the gifted ones deliver life with such fidelity that the truth hits very close to home indeed.” (Marisol, author of The Lady, The Chef, and The Courtesan)
“I have never encountered such exciting, eccentric, and lovably flawed characters as those Jessica Anya Blau creates in DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME.” (Allison Amend, author of Stations West)
Most helpful customer reviews
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful.
Couldn't put it down!
By Alison's
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.
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful.
Love it!
By Liz
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!
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
strong quirky family drama
By A Customer
In Santa Barbara, fifty-something Louise suffers a massive heart attack. She remains in a hospital in critical condition with her prime complaint being the lack of a cigarette or two hundred. Her husband Buzzy the lawyer promised Louise he would conceal her condition from their three adult kids, but could not as he needs them near for his sake.
Anna flies in from Vermont; leaving behind a spouse she cheats on due to a sex addiction to run their florist business and their infant. Portia, separated from her cheating spouse Patrick, arrives alone since their daughter Esme lives with her father's lover. TV producer Emery and his boyfriend Alejandro also come from the East Coast; they hope to persuade his older sisters to donate their eggs so that they can raise a baby; they already have selected the chosen female bearer. The bickering horde invade Louise's room causing havoc to the hospital's rule keepers, which in turn elates Louise still a renegade hippie after all those years.
The insightful story line rotates focus from the present mostly at the hospital and the past in which each protagonist recalls incidents differently. Louise is the prime player who holds the strong quirky family drama together. Buzzy and the children have flaws that make each seen real and lead to fans empathizing with them; especially Portia who as the middle child became the mom when her older sister and their mother abdicated the role yet her daughter rejects her.
Harriet Klausner
See all 146 customer reviews...
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