Sams in a Dry Season

by Ivan Gold

Overview

Two decades after writing the acclaimed Nickel Miseries and Sick Friends, Ivan Gold has broken his silence and produced a novel which brings back the character Jason Sams.

Combining fiction and memoir about triumph over the blackness of alcoholism, Sams in a Dry Season tracks Jason as he drowns in liquor and then, after several eye-opening experiences, puts down the bottle for good.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780671755379
Publisher:	Gallery Books
Publication date:	12/01/1992
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.78(d)

About the Author

Ivan Gold is the author of Sick Friends, a Simon & Schuster book.

Editorial Reviews

Two decades after his promising '60s debut, Gold makes a welcome return, distilling his own bout with alcoholism into the story of Jason Sams, failed writer and hopeless drunk. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In Sick Friends (1969), Gold's first novel, Sixties writer Jason Sams cheerfully admitted to being a sex fiend and an alcoholic. Now, in 1976, writing and sex are dim memories and drinking controls his life. Fired from a demeaning job at a Boston university, Sams heads for New York City to re-establish contact with the publishing world. This goal is quickly forgotten, however, and the trip degenerates into a sodden tour of liquor stores and taverns in search of the elusive India Ale. Gold has the psychology of alcoholism down cold, and the first half of this book invites comparison with Charles Jackson's classic The Lost Weekend . Unfortunately, the book's final chapters--which compress eight years of AA meetings and Antabuse into an optimistic coda--detract from the overall effect. This last-minute change of genre makes the novel more appropriate for substance-abuse collections than for general fiction collections.-- Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles

Library Journal