Ablutions

(Paperback)

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Description

A nameless barman tends a decaying bar in Hollywood and takes notes for a book about his clientele. Initially, he is morbidly amused by watching the regulars roll in and fall into their nightly oblivion, pitying them and their loneliness. In hopes of uncovering their secrets and motives, he establishes tentative friendships with them. He also knocks back pills indiscriminately and treats himself to gallons of Jameson's. But as his tenure at the bar continues, he begins to lose himself, trapped by addiction and indecision. When his wife leaves him, he embarks on a series of squalidly random sexual encounters and a downward spiral of self-damage and irrational violence. To cleanse himself and save his soul, he attempts to escape .

Reviews

PRAISE FOR"ABLUTIONS" ..". dark and provocative ... deWitt has painted a portrait of the human condition ... And ABLUTIONS has achieved something remarkable." --"The New York Times Book Review"

..". deWitt's writing is sharp and bitter and funny ... " --"Los Angeles Times

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"DeWitt's dirty realism makes me want to roll in the mud with him. Brilliant." --Gary Shteyngart, author of"Absurdistan" "Viciously hilarious ... deWitt's portrayal of the drinking life is staunchly unromantic." --"Time Out New York"(Five stars; Book of the day)

"These scenes are stunningly depicted ... deWitt writes beautifully about ugliness, and his book casts a haunting spell." --"Booklist"

"DeWitt's style of prose is refreshing and more like real life speak than most books, without losing the necessary descriptiveness to relay the feel and pure nuttiness of the situation inside the Hollywood bar where the scenes are set." --"About.com"

"Ablutions is like an intense art-house movie, where the lead

Author Bio

Patrick deWitt is the author of the critically acclaimed Ablutions and The Sisters Brothers, which won the 2011 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards. Born in British Columbia, he has also lived in California, Washington and Oregon, where he currently resides with his wife and son.