Closing Time
Queenan, Joe

RRP
A$20.99

A deeply funny and affecting memoir about a great escape from a childhood of poverty.

By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Closing Time recounts Joe Queenan's Irish Catholic upbringing in a family dominated by his erratic father, a violent yet oddly charming emotional terrorist whose alcoholism fuels a limitless torrent of self-pity, railing, destruction, and late-night chats with the Lord Himself. With the help of a series of mentors and surrogate fathers, and armed with his own furious love of books and music, Joe begins the long flight away from the dismal confines of his neighbourhood - with a brief misbegotten stop at a seminary - and into the wider world.

Closing Time is an unforgettable account of the damage done to children by parents without futures and of the grace children find to move beyond these experiences.

Author Information

Joe Queenan writes about movies and music for the Guardian and is a regular contributor to Nightwaves. His work appears frequently in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Forbes, Golf Digest, and many other publications. He has appeared on Nightly Review, Newsnight and Front Row; formerly presented Postcard from Gotham; and can regularly be heard on BBC Radio 4. He is the author of seven previous books, two collections of articles, and an anthology of the world's foremost malicious literature.