Drinking with Men: A Memoir
Drinking memoirs generally fall into two categories: “Never again” and “Pour me another.” Schaap, who writes the “Drink” column for the New York Times Magazine, has composed one of the latter, an ode to the “great tradition of regularhood” advocating “equal regularhood rights for women.” From her teenage discovery of the bar car on the Metro-North New Haven Line; to her college years at the Pig, in North Bennington, Vermont; to a marriage-ending epiphany at Else’s, in Montreal, Schaap charts her path from adolescence to adulthood, bar by bar, sometimes having a few too many but always finding the sense of community and belonging she clearly craves. Early passages can seem a bit naive, as when she suggests bars’ negative depiction in popular culture (what about Cheers?) or when she just can’t understand what her friends and family have against her new pals from the bar. But, as her remembered self ages, deeper and richer insights emerge. Ultimately, this is as much about growing up in bars as it is growing out of them. --Keir Graff