Ok, I'll be honest. I picked up this book for three superficial reasons:
1) It is set in Australia2) The title (and sub-title, which reads: "drunk, disorderly & down under")
3) Russell Brand's endorsement on the front.
Lame, I know. But there is a bit more to this book than meets the eye, although I'm going to say right now that it didn't meet the potential I thought it had. There were some really insightful moments and some truly tragic scenes, and some scarily precise depictions of destructive and hedonistic behaviour. At times, though, Cameron's writing brought the whole thing down, and it occasionally read like a piece of chick-lit fluff.
Kerry arrives in Sydney plastered and with her tongue down a stranger's throat. She has drunk sex with him for a few days before wandering off to Glebe to find a job and start on her 'mission' - the reason she left Edinburgh. When she starts working for a company called ART, selling mass-produced paintings door-to-door (flogging them as originals), the path of her destiny seems to lead her into increasingly more bizarre circumstances. Day-long binges of alcohol and drugs, sex with strangers, drunk phone calls to her grandfather in Scotland, and the intriguing banter with her boss, Anaya, keep Kerry on her toes and in a confusing whirlwind - and, seemingly, away from her ultimate goal.
Just underneath the surface of all this partying and promiscuity is real heart: Kerry is a broken girl, and she's looking for something to heal her. The characters are touching and true, the setting of Sydney sizzles with its unique vivacity, and the emotional desperation and tenseness builds well throughout the story. There was just a little - I don't know. Something held this book back from being the moving, imprint-leaving novel it had all the ingredients to be. Having said that, it is Cameron's debut - and by day she is a comedienne... so perhaps that's why it felt so light at times. I enjoyed it - there were some really hilarious moments and it maintained a level of frankness that would make the bluntest comedians blush.
Maybe it didn't come to be what I thought it could be. But as it is, The Naked Drinking Club
interesting, fun, tragic and outrageous with subtle, dark tones. Weightier than your average beach read.
interesting, fun, tragic and outrageous with subtle, dark tones. Weightier than your average beach read.
. It speaks for itself just to say that I convinced Uri (my fiancé, who makes up for my overzealous approach to reading with his laxness) to read one chapter and he is now hooked and reading (and re-reading!) the whole thing. Really it is a collection of columns that Bryson wrote for the Mail on Sunday when he picked up and moved his family and his whole life back to his home country after living in England for 25 years or so. It's a strange dynamic, having an American who is almost an Englishman reporting about America's quirks and attributes, trying to re-adjust to life in the USA. But Bryson is just too funny - turning a simple trip to the post office into an hilarious anecdote and sometimes letting his taste for the British outrageous humour ride a long wave, becoming somewhat rant-like, but never losing its edge and wit. The short, sharp injections of humour make it all the more enjoyable, as there is never much downtime. It's just about laugh after laugh.