If you loved Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle, you'll love...
CBC Radio | Posted: October 9, 2015 6:37 PM | Last Updated: October 13, 2015
The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls, is a best-selling book about the author's dysfunctional family. Columnist Victor Dwyer says if you liked Walls' memoir, you'll love Drunk Mom by Toronto-based author Jowita Bydlowska.
"I think Drunk Mom is a great book about a story about someone who is a drunk, a flat out drunk. This isn't an adjective in front of mom; she is a drunk and she is a mom. In the first 11 months of her child's life she relapses into a horrible alcoholism that she had left behind her years before. It's riveting, it's scary, it's sickening at times. It's so wide-eyed. she looks and examines everything. She apologizes for nothing. It's as if she's saying in the book, 'Screw you vodka. This is what you did to me and I am going to out you. I'm going to tell the world what I went through.' People have really pilloried her for writing this and not being more contrite and apologizing. I love that about it. It's a scary book about a family and alcohol and what it did to it."
Victor Dwyer's comments have been edited and condensed.