The Bartender's Cure by Wesley Straton. This is a story of young woman, Sam, overcoming personal challenges and finding her way through life as she works as a bartender in hipster Brooklyn. If I were to pursue some Aristotelian categorization of this book, I would waver between calling it popular fiction or a literary novel. Straton uses an engaging conceit: each chapter begins with a drink recipe, and the character development and plot itself both progress in a way reflecting the drink and the story behind it, which we learn about along with Sam as she becomes more proficient behind the bar. The device never seems forced or awkward, so enmeshed are Sam's personal and professional growth; we move with her on her journey in a fully realized context, deep in the milieu she is moving through.
I have spoken before of my negative response to authors who eschew quotation marks; Straton has busted that bias wide open. Sam tells us a lot directly, addressing the reader as if relating an anecdote to someone at the bar; when she narrates a conversation, she tells us (the reader) what she is thinking, and then in the next instant we realize that it is what she has said aloud to her companion. The immediacy of the story-telling is sustained for the whole novel and it works.
Straton has not only created an engaging character and a story that carries us along, but she demonstrates a deep talent for the craft of writing. I will be looking for her other work.
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