SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE
‘An intense, succulent read that’s intermittently dazzling’ THE TIMES
‘Chilling, exquisitely moving’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘A superb memoir – and one of the best books on addiction I have ever read’ EVENING STANDARD
A. A. Gill’s memoir begins in the dark of a dormitory with six strangers. He is an alcoholic, dying in the last-chance saloon. He tells the truth – as far as he can remember it – about drinking and about what it is like to be drunk. He recalls the lost days, lost friends, failed marriages … But there was also an ‘optimum inebriation, a time when it was all golden’.
Sobriety regained, there are painterly descriptions of people and places, unforgettable musings about childhood and family, art and religion; and most movingly, the connections between his cooking, dyslexia and his missing brother.
Full of raw and unvarnished truths, exquisitely written throughout, POUR ME is about lost time and self-discovery. Lacerating, unflinching, uplifting, it is a classic about drunken abandon.
