Hotels, Hospitals, And Jails: A Memoir (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
Tony Swofford is a brutally honest and good story teller. Tony joins the military to get away from a bad home life. Returns from the Gulf War, goes to college to become a writer and then writes Jarhead. This becomes a best selling book and movie. He makes obscene amounts of money - is out of control with spending, drinking, drugging and juggling sexual relationships with several women at a time. Not a very likable or dependable person. This book is his journey with coming to terms with his anger towards his father and himself. I more or less read anything when it comes to Swofford. This book was a heart-wringer, and it was meant to be; his memoir of his own wrung-out heart laid across the page. People expecting the heir to Jarhead are likely to be disappointed, but there's a lot to dig into here. The frank way he deals with his own success and celebrity is clearly supposed to inspire disregard; it evidentially inspired disregard and no small self-loathing in Swofford himself. Anyone who has ever had a strained relationship with a parent or relative will recognize a lot of what Swofford deals with, confronts, fucks up, tries again, and fucks up twice in this book. And anyone who has ever dealt with post-soldier, post-combat individuals will recognize a lot of the mental gymnastics in here as well. I can't give an unqualified recommendation of this book; it is not for everyone. But it was most assuredly for me, and I drank in every page like the well whiskey you keep ordering long after the bartender should have called you a cab. I await further books with alacrity.
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