great american bar scene review

Price: $7.28
(as of Dec 29, 2024 13:51:15 UTC - Details)

A group of barflies shares their life challenges during regular visits to a favorite drinking spot, in a tale that features such characters as a drunken advice columnist who eschews her own recommendations and an ex-con who falls for the same woman repeatedly.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; First Edition (May 8, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1416535241
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1416535249
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.3 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 7.5 inches
Reviewer: Michelle R.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Lives of quiet desperation.
Review: Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.Henry David ThoreauI purchased this as a gift for my grandmother, among several other books, and began to read it myself after casually picking it up. Then, I set it down and my grandmother picked it up, and it took a couple days for me to get it back. What was I supposed to do, since it was hers to begin with?Anyhow, I quite enjoyed these short stories that became a novel when grouped together. It felt authentic to me. The way people who are not blood relatives come together at the local bar, or the morning coffee shop, or the lunchroom at work and become a sort of family. For a time, they know -- perhaps even love -- one another. Life takes the people in different directions, and they perhaps leave with little thought given, until the old timers of the group have to tell the newcomers about this person who used to be there. Or, the person who left thinks back and remembers, and perhaps feels a little longing. This book felt like that to me and captured what all truly poignant books do -- that nothing gold can stay and that "Golden lads and lasses must like chimney sweepers come to dust."The book is centered around Lucy's Bar and the stories span an extended period of time. A number of characters get their own story or stories and mention the other residents of the bar. Even the characters who don't get their own stories are mentioned enough that the reader comes to know them. There are moments that are achingly sad and some that are laugh-out-loud funny. There is an incident where a character steals chicken from a delivery girl, climbs a tree, and begins to eat the chicken "in an intimidating and rapid manner." This perhaps amuses me even more than it should. Some moments are funny AND poignant, like when a character laments that his wife has bad taste in men.I liked that the characters made mistakes real people make, and then made them again. That's real. None of us catch on and move on as fast as the people who are not us think we should. Even the story titles are worth reflection. One story is called Men Shoot Things to Kill Them. The rest of the thought, as expressed in the story, is that women kill things to save them -- acts of mercy. Whether or not you agree with the sentiment, it tells you a lot about the person who believes it.I don't really have any complaints. This is not a book for people who want a lot of action or things happening. The people live fairly mundane lives of what Thoreau called quiet desperation. This is for people who enjoy simple vignettes and character studies, and getting to know a group of people over time. If you like, oh, Mad Men, you might like it, but if you need a book to be more like 24, this would not be my first choice to buy you for your birthday.

Reviewer: Diane Mc
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: good writing but no character "connection"
Review: It was unanimous from our book club members: We liked much of Berry's writing -- great turns of phrase, a strong sense of local flavor, humor -- but we never felt as if we got to know the characters. They were just never developed enough that we developed empathy for them. Perhaps if I hung out in a bar more, I'd feel as if I "knew" these characters? And the one character who was never developed at all and would have been so, so interesting was bartender Rita. So, overall, an easy read, and some of the individual chapters we liked on their own. But I love to feel as if I've gotten to know a character, and that just didn't happen for me with this one.

Reviewer: PaulaB
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: a 5-star book with a 3-star end
Review: I fell in love with the regulars at Lucy's Tavern right off the bat. I often felt as if I knew them all, and I was immediately immersed in their intertwined lives. It was painful to watch my new friends as they slowly but surely drank themselves into oblivion to escape the ordinariness of their daily existence and the confines of their small town--and Lucy's Tavern. The regulars would make a mess of their lives, and then try to make sense of it all--later, at the bar. While some of the characters dream of a different life, their inertia (and perhaps fear of what life might have in store for them) keeps them glued to their bar stools. Only at the end does Linda escape, but this is related in such a perfunctory way that the reader is left with a sense of incompleteness.And that was my problem with this novel: the end. Everything is wrapped up too neatly, as though the book was an hour-long television show and Barry had only five minutes left before the next show began. Imagine how empty you'd feel upon learning that a good friend had suddenly disappeared; that was how I felt when I reached the last word of this novel.I wish that I could have given this book five stars, but the final chapter was too disappointing for me to feel justified in doing so.

Reviewer: John K. Crane
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title: No Richard Russo
Review: I am sorry to put a damper on all this enthusiasm and admit to being a personal friend of Richard Russo's (which is why I bought the book). The only writer I know of who can link short stories to form a novel is Maeve Binchy (THE LILAC BUS and WHITE THORN WOODS). Short stories must be self-contained, and Ms. Barry's are not. They all depend on information in other stories to make the current one understandable. I can find no evidence that any of these stories have been published independently. There is only one, maybe two, that can stand and be understood without the others to underpin it. "How to Save a Wounded Bird" deals with a sensitive subject, often in the news of late, of why lonely women schoolteachers prey upon charming male students, initially for help, ultimately for sex. The teacher in this story does pull up short of sex, but she needs at least someone to kiss her. She hesitates before this also. In Russo's stories, his downandouters always have something that interests them, however wierd it is. Think of Sully trying to prove he's "nobody's fool" in the novel of that title. In Ms.Barry's book, they simply get loaded and complain. The last line summarizes the book best: "Say what you will about drunks . . . but no one will ever love you like they can." Unfortunately, I was not convinced by her characters' behavior that this was true.

Reviewer: Roskana, France
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I loved this book - Rebecca Barr writes about very ordinary people in an extraordinarily sensitive way. Each story weaves into a whole, the lives of the characters overlapping in incidents which are sometimes sad, sometimes hilarious, always interesting. At the end of the book, the author says she is writing a follow-up novel with the same characters - where is it? I can only find her autobiography. Anway, Later at the Bar is a great read, un-putdownable, all that - and the characters will haunt you. Highly recommend you try it.