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DEATH WILL GET YOU SOBER
by Elizabeth Zelvin
St Martin's Minotaur, April 2008
272 pages
$23.95
ISBN: 0312375891


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

I think most people have had Christmas Days that they would really rather forget than have lived through. Bruce Kohler's is right up there with "really bad"; he wakes up in a detox unit in New York City, hung over and miserable. It's not the first time he‛s been through detox; he knows what‛s coming and he‛s pretty sure he‛s not buying into it this time, either.

While in detox, he makes the acquaintance of God, aka Godfrey Brandon Kettleworth III. God has an attitude which doesn't endear him to the staff. He does what he's told, but takes his own sweet time to do it. He very obviously comes from money, which doesn't endear him to many of his peers, some of whom have been on the Bowery for years. Bruce and God hang out, share low-grade confidences, and make it through long enough to go out on pass. Bruce manages not to drink, and God comes back looking sober. Then he gets dreadfully sick, and dies.

When Bruce finally gets out of detox, his best friends help him stay sober (which nobody really can do for anyone else, but they do what they can to help him). Jimmy is a recovering alcoholic of many years, and his girlfriend Barbara is a codependent addictions counselor; they have lots of ways to help Bruce figure out who killed God and the surprising number of other dead alcoholics throughout the city.

The mystery in DEATH WILL GET YOU SOBER isn‛t all that difficult for the average reader to figure out. Don‛t read it for the puzzle. Read it for the characters and the absolutely spot-on take on the seamy underbelly of recovery, addiction therapy, and AA. Anyone who has ever tried to "work a program" will see something of themselves in this book, and certainly will recognize the language and the characters who seem to be around any table anywhere. Bruce‛s recovery is shaky, but he‛s still not drinking at the end of the book, which is a good thing.

This is a first novel by a psychotherapist, which might account fort the point-of-view shifts between Bruce and Barbara that I found disconcerting, but not enough to make me stop reading. I had one "Oh, really?" moment when Barbara was able to take numerous password tries on a computer in a medical office, and not get locked out - not realistic in my experience - but again, not a deal breaker. I had another such moment when Barbara is talking about drugs - but people not in the drug business don‛t always know exactly what they are talking about, so I gave her a pass on this one. DEATH WILL GET YOU SOBER is brutally honest, and every once in a while, screamingly funny. Gotta love that!

Reviewed by P.J. Coldren, September 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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