Double Double
A Dual Memoir of Alcoholism
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“A thoughtful twist on the recovery memoir” (O, The Oprah Magazine) that explains the different ways bestselling author Martha Grimes and her son, Ken Grimes, recognized and overcame their addictions, now with two new chapters—one from each author.
In this introspective and groundbreaking memoir of addiction, mystery writer Martha Grimes and her son, Ken Grimes, present two different, often intersecting points of view. Chapters alternate between Ken’s and Martha's voices and experiences in 12-step program and outpatient clinics.
Written with honesty, humor, a little self-deprecation, and a lot of self-evaluation, Double Double is “an honest, moving, and readable account of the drinking life and the struggle for recovery. This brave and engaging memoir is a gift” (Kirkus Reviews).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With its title taken from a line spoken by the three witches in Macbeth, this prickly, wildly uneven memoir is ostensibly about years of excessive drinking by the celebrated mystery author and her son. In alternate sections, the mother-son team describe their respective struggles with alcohol. Yet while Martha's segments reveal a truly thoughtful artist wrestling with the internal, nearly metaphysical contradictions posed by drinking, her son, Ken who attended his mother's alma mater, the University of Iowa, and then hooked into PR jobs in publishing comes off as arrogant and entitled, drinking and smoking to anesthetize the sense that he "never had enough." Ken attended a 12-step AA program by his mid-20s, while mother Martha preferred detox at the Kolmac Clinic, among others. They have been clean for at least a few decades and their memories of the big peaks and troughs on alcohol are a little hazy. Ken's sections are grounded in ham-fisted blowouts in bars and football games; while Martha's are subtly calibrated depictions that suggest she will never be as seduced as she had been by the bottle. In the end, mother Martha simply asks why her son went "looking for safety in booze." Despite several "conversations" that bring the two voices together, the metaphysical and the logistical 12-step are grating in this ill-focused work.
