Cypress Walls has crowded my thoughts the past few days. First, Jerry Simmons of INDI Publishing Group, the gentleman who assumed the relatively impossible task of convincing retail outlets that my unknown book was worthy of shelf space after my first partner, Blu Sky Media, went belly up has been a constant in my inbox. A company called Midpoint Trade Books has ceased conducting business with him and, therefore, no longer wants to market and/or warehouse the remaining 392 copies of Cypress Walls in its possession. So those will soon make their way to El Paso and, unfortunately, I have to pay the shipping and handling. Hopefully, I can find 392 future college graduates who will give them homes. The price will be right. On a separate note, I'm contemplating an exhaustive feature story on the pros and cons of self publishing a book.
The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer is the other reason why my memoir has been on my mind. I finished reading it this morning though, admittedly, there were many sections that I skimmed. If you're unfamiliar, it chronicles the author's life from age seven to his mid-twenties and how a bar, first known as Dickens and later as Publicans, in his native Manhasset, NY shaped his journey from childhood to manhood.
I have mixed feelings about The Tender Bar. Moehringer is a crafty storyteller and there were parts that held my interest especially his account of being a copyboy at The New York Times in the mid-80s. At its core, however, I found the narrative nothing more than a celebration of drinking and getting drunk on a daily basis. Had I read it 15 years ago, fresh out of college, disillusioned and swelling with pride, I probably would have loved all of the tales of boozing and brooding with fellow boozers because I was at the stage in my life where frequenting bars, running up ridiculous tabs and figuring out how to get home was highly entertaining. I wrote about several of those mis-adventures in Cypress Walls though the fondness I once held for those memories has faded.
Today, that kind of behavior just doesn't make any sense to me. Whenever Moehringer entered his hallowed grounds, I raced ahead to the next section, lacking the patience to read conversations that I found hard to believe considering how wasted the players were and all of the years that had passed from the time they occurred to the time the book was published.
As a fellow memoirist, that was my biggest point of contention with The Tender Bar. While I don't have any doubt that Moehringer spent a ton of time at Dickens/Publicans and forged unforgettable bonds with a host of interesting characters, it just didn't feel authentic.
When I wrote Cypress Walls, I went to painstaking detail to apply dates to the events I described. Most of the dialogue is pulled directly from letters and other correspondence which I catalogued. There are a few quotes and phrases that I drew from memory, but those are limited. Evidently, Moehringer took note of many of the conversations he had at the bar and then revisited those discussions with the barflies later as he wrote. I appreciated him mentioning this in the epilogue, but it didn't change my opinion of the work feeling sloppy. Had he presented the material as fiction I may feel differently.
Are my opinions tinged with jealously? One could make the argument, but The Tender Bar was marked for success and recognition long before it went to print. Moehringer is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, a Harvard fellow, and a graduate of Yale. He had access to the finest literary minds on the planet as he researched and wrote his book. A major publisher stepped up and backed him with a team of editors and a marketing budget. I don't begrudge him for his good fortune and I have no doubt that he paid his dues. I only wish that after accessing all of those perks, The Tender Bar offered the reader more.
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