Drinking with Dead Drunks (Drink with Dead Writers Book 1)

For a treat every high school student who has worked his or her way through American Lit should be encouraged to read this book. In a nutshell it captures the hearts, heads and spirits of some fascinating writers.The premise is pure genius. The book is composed of sixteen individual brief interview articles, such as you might read in any current journal. The authors' comments and observations in the "interviews" are constructed from lines, epigrams or bits of dialogue from each author's published works, real interviews, memoirs, or attributions drawn from biographies. The interviews are written in a straight-faced style and read like actual legitimate journal articles. It helps that Turner and Ambrose bring real wit and style to their halves of the conversations and the interviews feel real and natural.But, here's the best part. Each interview actually and effectively captures and conveys something real about each author. Hemingway displays hearty bravado, Fitzgerald is appropriately melancholy and convincingly testy when Zelda crashes the interview. Capote is full of puckish charm, Tennessee Williams is damaged and mercurial, Kerouac is paranoid and depressed.The upshot is that you get a tasty, amusing and apt snapshot of each author, built around his own words. These interviews are wonderful bite-size snacks, built upon fine and subtle understanding of the authors and craftsmanship on the part of Turner and Ambrose. A wonderful find.Please note that I found this book while browsing Amazon Kindle freebies. I have no connection at all to either the authors or the publisher of this book.

Fantastic concept... so good in fact I downloaded the kindle version (super easy by the way). To say I was disappointed would be something of an understatement. Imagine a 4th year school pupil of average intelligence (but little wit or panache) let loose with a scrap book of quotations, access to Wikipedia and list of the authors favourite drinks. In a nutshell there you have it. I plowed on through the book in the vain hope that either it would improve or my own state of inebriation might illuminate some dark inner workings of genius. Unhappily neither event happened and I was left with a heap of tosh albeit that I now now Truman Capote drank Justerini & Brooks (J & B) whisky and would have preferred Marilyn Monroe in Breakfast at Tiffanys. Fascinating. Ambrose and Turner have succeeded in turning what could have been an entertaining romp into a mundane plod. I fully accept that this is a personal view and clearly some will be enchanted. I however consider this a wasted opportunity. Taking my initial school analogy one stage further, I would say this deserves a "1/5 Good idea, poorly executed.... must try harder next time".Regrettably, I cannot recommend this to the House.