No Soft Landings: A Memoir
by David McCreery
Category: Biography & Autobiography

No Soft Landings: A Memoir is an account of one man's life in an upper middle class family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that was riddled with alcoholism. It details his early years, the strange personality transformations of his parents during the "cocktail hour", the loneliness and undiagnosed depression that afflicted him and his siblings. The years pass, and the disease of alcoholism claim him and many of his family members. The account of his life and those of his parents and brother speak to unmanageability in an alcoholic setting, the pain and neglect in a family of charming, but troubled people. There are private schools, birthday parties and protestations of parental love, but the disease of alcoholism supplants every reasonable effort to forgive and make peace for generations. The book contains four seminal moments in the author's life; there is humour and tenderness throughout. One of the basic themes deals with the phenomenon of the "dry drunk' - a chaotic condition in which abstinence from alcohol is achieved, but without the support of a 12-step program.