Drunken Angel, Alan Kaufman
Drunken Angel, Alan Kaufman
List: $22.95 | Sale: $16.07
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Drunken Angel

Author: Alan Kaufman

Narrator: Keith Szarabajka

Unabridged: 12 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/15/2011

Synopsis

Alan Kaufman recounts with unvarnished honesty the story of the alcoholism that took him to the brink of death, the posttraumatic stress disorder that drove him to the edge of madness, and the love that brought him back. Son of a French Holocaust survivor, Kaufman was a drinker so mauled by his indulgences that it is a marvel he hung on long enough to get into recovery. With his estranged daughter as inspiration, Kaufman cleaned himself up at age forty, taking full responsibility for nearly destroying himself, his work, and so many loved ones along the way. Kaufman minces no words as he looks back on a life pickled in selfpity, selfloathing, and guilt. Reading Drunken Angel is like watching an accident to see if any of the victims crawl away barely alive. Kaufman did, and here he delivers a lacerating, cautionary tale of a life wasted and reclaimed.

About Alan Kaufman

Alan Kaufman is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Jew Boy, the novel Matches, and a book of poetry, Who Are We? He is the editor of The New Generation: Fiction for Our Time from America’s Writing Programs, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, and coeditor of The Outlaw Bible of American Literature. His writings have appeared in the San Francisco Examiner, Tikkun, Tel Aviv Review, Witness, and other publications, as well as in many webzines, including Tattoo Jew, of which he is the editor. A former editor of Jewish Frontier, he is the founder and editor of the controversial magazine Davka: Jewish Cultural Revolution and has performed extensively as a spoken-word poet in the United States and internationally. He holds American, French, and Israeli citizenship and lives in San Francisco, where he teaches classes about memoir writing and journalism at the Academy of Art University and other workshops. Well-established in his literary career, he is now gaining recognition as a painter of haunting portraits.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Julie on December 20, 2016

An addiction and recovery memoir so exhaustive in detail that it's only yanked back from the potentially tiresome by Bronx-born Kaufman's relentlessly intelligent and honest voice. The son of a deeply troubled, abusive Holocaust survivor and a father with a serious gambling addiction, the author mak......more

Goodreads review by Kate on August 23, 2016

I'm throwing caution to the wind and giving this 5 stars, even though while reading certain parts I thought I'd give it three or four. But the end was so good, and the story had such peak moments, and the writing is invigorating--so I do recommend it. The first half of the book is crushingly dark, b......more

Goodreads review by Ezekiel on July 17, 2013

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will recommend it to others. It is more than just an addiction memoir. It's about somebody's becoming a human being really. The whole, "Courage to change the things I can, accept the things I can't," is presented in the latter part of the book as a lifestyle choice......more

Goodreads review by Brenda on June 24, 2012

The writing style was a little different from what I am used to, but it worked for this memoir. The author painted a raw, human, and mostly unflattering picture of the depths of his alcoholism, and the time, opportunities and relationships sacrificed for it. I had a hard time putting it down. At a p......more

Goodreads review by Saira on May 22, 2012

Despite the number of dropped personal threads and increasingly scattered thoughts as the end of the book neared, I really enjoyed this personal reflection. His detailed journey into addiction, self-loathing and debilitating paranoia, though raunchy and never-ending, was a bitterly accurate portraya......more

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