Old Soak, and Hail And Farewell

It's 1921, Prohibition is barely a year old, and already the old ways are fading. Don Marquis's Old Soak, that ancient, cunning, whiskey-sodden philosopher, has decided to commit his memories to paper before the last traces of saloon culture disappear from American memory. Part memoir, part found documents, part tall tale, the Old Soak rumbles and connives his way through recollections of the old barrooms, the old drinking companions, and old King Booze himself, who took one of the Old Soak's foot to the grave alongside him. Interspersed with poems that celebrate drunkenness with genuine warmth and wit, this book works as both a drunken elegy and a quiet act of rebellion against the dry new America. The prose crackles with authentic American vernacular - salty, wise, and irrepressibly sympathetic even in its wobbling inebriation. For readers who love American humor, Prohibition history, or the dying art of the tall tale, this is a time capsule of a world where the bartender knew your name and the evening stretched on like a long, amber sunset.