from "A Fan's Notes"
by Frederick Exley
On Sunday, the eleventh of November, 196-, while sitting
at the bar of the New Parrot Restaurant in my home town,
Watertown, awaiting the telecast of the New York Giants-
Dallas Cowboys football game, I had what, at the time, I took
to be a heart attack.
It wasn't. It - the "seizure" or whatever one chooses to
call it - was brought on by the high and delicious anxiety I
always experienced just prior to a Giants game, and by a
weekend of foodless, nearly heroic drinking. For me it was a
common enough drinking; but the amounts consumed had been
intensified by the news, received by mail from Scarsdale two
days before, that my wife intended to divorce me and to have
custody of my two-year-old twin sons. It gives me feeble
comfort to report it was not a heart attack. The pain was
excruciatingly vivid, and for many moments I was terrified by
the fear of death. Illogically, this was one terror I
believed I had long since cast off - having cast it off, I
thought, with the effortless lunacy of a man putting a shotgun
into his mouth and ridding himself of the back of his skull.
That the fear of death still owns me is, in its way, a
beginning.
posted by fred burgess! at 12:19 PM
2 Comments:
This is one book that I strongly recommend.
On a more personal note I add, I'm currently undergoing the after effects of "a weekend of foodless, nearly heroic drinking." I had to stop multiple times while typing this passage, thinking I may vommit.
It's 2:30 in the afternoon.
Pruitt - I hope you don't mind - I'm posting your note:
Your latest blog post reminded me of a book that I read recently -- "Dry" by Augusten Burroughs. It's a pretty quick read about a pretty phenomenal and entertaining struggle with alcoholism. Kind of a dark comedy, I suppose. He does a great job of telling harrowing stories while managing to make some of the details absolutely hilarious. His other book, "Running with Scissors," is also great. He should really put me on his payroll.
"Big P"
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