Dry -- Augusten Burroughs

In Dry, we get Augusten Burroughs' take on rehab and alcoholism in general.

Not surprisingly, the rehab part of the book is pretty surreal:

Two of the patients reach behind their chairs and retrieve two large, well-worn stuffed animals; one is a monkey, one is a blue kitten.  They hug the dirty plush toys to their laps and wear great big smiles.

At once, the entire room breaks into an alarming musical chant.  It's Monkey Wonkey time . . . Monkey Wonkey was a lonely monkey.  Then Blue Blue kitten became his friend . . . now Monkey Wonkey and Blue Blue Kitten want to make friends with . . . YOU!!"

When he gets back to work after his month away, things are pretty weird:

I've never seen her look so bizarre.  The vein on the side of her forehead seems to actually be pulsating.  It's awkward to be around her, because I feel like she's walking on eggshells.  Like in one of those cheesy interracial movies from the seventies where nobody ever mentions that the white girl's boyfriend is black, but everyone is highly aware of it.  Then somebody says watermelon in a sentence and everyone sort of gasps.  That's how I feel.

An extremely handsome crack addict in group therapy is hitting on him, his best friend is dying, and someone is trying to sabotage his sobriety by hiding bottles of gin in his office.  Things are rough.

It was totally different than Running with Scissors.  It wasn't laugh-out-loud funny like RwS--it was more of a wry smile book.  But a really good one, both just as a book in general, and as a book about addiction.

Now I really want to get a hold of Sellevision, which is his novel about the Home Shopping Network.