The Bartender's Cure: A Novel

by Wesley Straton

Overview

“Compelling… [A] sure-bet read-alike for Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter.” --Booklist

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK by BuzzFeed, Goodreads, Electric Lit, New York Post, LitHub, BookRiot, and Library Journal

A fiercely relatable coming-of-age debut novel about an aspiring bartender at the perfect Brooklyn neighborhood bar

Samantha definitely does not want to be a bartender. But after a breakup and breakdown in San Francisco, she decides to defer law school for a year to move to New York, crashing on her best friend’s couch. When she is offered a job at Joe’s Apothecary, a beloved neighborhood bar in Brooklyn, she tells herself it’s only temporary.

As Sam learns more about bartending and gets to know the service industry lifers and loyal regulars at Joe’s, she is increasingly seduced by her new job. She finds acceptance in her tight-knit community and even begins a new relationship. But as the year draws to a close, destructive cycles from her past threaten to consume her again. Sam is increasingly pulled between the life she thought she wanted and the possibility of a different kind of future. How much is she willing to let go of to finally belong?

Filled with cocktail recipes and bartending tips and tricks, this captivating, utterly original debut will quench your thirst.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250809094
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	06/28/2022
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Wesley Straton is a writer and bartender based in Brooklyn. She writes fiction about found families, alienation, and how where we live shapes who we are. She studied fiction at Brooklyn College, where she received the Himan Brown Creative Writing Award and served as an editor for the Brooklyn Review. Her fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train and has been shortlisted for the Disquiet Literary Prize, and she has written about international bar culture for Roads&Kingdoms, GQ, and Difford’s Guide. The Bartender's Cure is her debut.
Wesley Straton is a writer and bartender based in Brooklyn. She writes fiction about found families, alienation, and how where we live shapes who we are. She studied fiction at Brooklyn College, where she received the Himan Brown Creative Writing Award and served as an editor for the Brooklyn Review. Her fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train and has been shortlisted for the Disquiet Literary Prize, and she has written about international bar culture for Roads&Kingdoms, GQ, and Difford’s Guide. The Bartender’s Cure is her debut.

Editorial Reviews

A Most Anticipated Book (BuzzFeed, Goodreads, Electric Lit, New York Post, LitHub, BookRiot, Library Journal)

"The service industry novel we needed...A coming of age artists’ novel, the kind where a protagonist has to shed everything they thought they knew, as well as find their creative voice. Only, Samantha’s art involves a cocktail shaker and simple syrup."

—Nylon

“Compelling and informative, this sure-bet read-alike for Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter looks head-on at the physical, mental, and emotional toll of working in the hospitality industry, as it blends Sam's internal struggles with the joy she finds in mixology, in equal parts.”

—Booklist

“Charming…Stuffed with trivia and lore…This illuminating paean to mixology is best read at your favorite bar or with ingredients nearby.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Entertaining and thoughtful.”

—Library Journal

“Like a finely crafted cocktail, this novel’s brilliance exists in its perfect balance of sweetness, sourness, saltiness, and strength. As much a love letter to the service industry as it is a coming-of-age story, Straton’s rendering of Brooklyn bars and found families will leave you yearning for your favorite local. Shake this triumphant debut with ice and strain into a chilled coupe. No garnish necessary.”

—Camille Perri, author of When Katie Met Cassidy and The Assistants

“The Bartender’s Cure is an evocative coming-of-age story and captivating glimpse into the world of bartending and cocktail lore. Wesley Straton’s prose is simultaneously restrained and dazzling, and protagonist Samantha Fisher is tough yet tender, singular yet familiar. This is one book hangover I'm in no hurry to recover from.”

—Margarita Montimore, author of Oona Out of Order

“A love letter to the school of life, this tender story about a dispirited San Francisco transplant looking for salvation on the Brooklyn cocktail scene is ambrosial and spiked—you’ll drink the words right up.”

—Courtney Maum, author of Touch and Costalegre

“A novel that asks you to hold your drink up high and salute all your messy, past selves. The cocktail recipes are good, but the heart in these pages is even greater. A debut from a writer with a poet’s eye, who renders Brooklyn neighborhoods and the people that mill through them with extraordinary tenderness.”

—Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl

From the Publisher

2022-05-25
A 24-year-old California girl on her way to Harvard Law stops off behind a bar in Brooklyn.

Straton’s debut is two books in one—a thoroughly researched and mostly charming compendium of information about bartending and recipes for cocktails and a rather lugubrious account of her narrator Samantha “Sam” Fisher’s gap year employment at a drinking establishment called Joe’s Apothecary. Sam is at a low point emotionally and financially as she heads in for her interview, a long shot since women are rarely seen behind a bar. Sure enough, the place is staffed by three men, all named Dan, one of whom she had a messy encounter with a while back, but they decide to give her a chance. This Columbia graduate is nothing if not a dedicated student, and if her boring love life and slowly revealed traumatic backstory aren't sufficient to shake together a compelling plot, she will certainly find out what goes in a Negroni and a sidecar, and how and why and where and when as well. Each chapter opens with a cocktail recipe and is stuffed with trivia and lore—the purpose of the Snaiquiri (a minidaquiri shared at the beginning of a bar shift), the possible origins of the word cocktail (ginger stuffed up a horse’s behind?), backstory on the original Trader Vic’s tiki bar (shut down due to tackiness by Donald Trump), and much more. Sometimes she goes further than strictly necessary—dictionary definition of mocktail, anyone?—but her tips on effective Instagram posts are worth bookmarking. This novel is a close cousin of Stephanie Danler’s bestselling Sweetbitter, but the characters don't have as much star power, and the will to educate is more dominant. Tics in the storytelling voice—endless clauses strung together with and, endless asides beginning with “Once upon a time”—become annoying in the absence of narrative momentum.

This illuminating paean to mixology is best read at your favorite bar or with ingredients nearby.

Kirkus Reviews