The Tender Bar: A Memoir

Overview

JR Moehringer grew up listening for a voice, the voice of his missing father, a disc jockey who disappeared before JR spoke his first words. As a boy, JR would press his ear to a battered clock radio, straining to hear in that resonant voice the secrets of identity and masculinity. When the voice disappeared, JR found new voices in the bar on the corner. A grand old New York saloon, the bar was a sanctuary for all sorts of men - cops and poets, actors and lawyers, gamblers and stumblebums. The flamboyant characters along the bar - including JR's Uncle Charlie, a Humphrey Bogart look-alike; Colt, a Yogi Bear sound-alike; Joey D, a soft-hearted brawler; and Cager, a war hero who raised handicapping horses to an art - taught JR, tended him, and provided a kind of fatherhood by committee.

Editorial Reviews

"The best memoirist of his kind since Mary Karr wrote The Liar's Club." --Janet Maslin, New York Times

"Heart-wrenchingly funny." --Carol Memmott, USA Today

"Moehringer has crafted a yearning, lyrical account of his fatherless youth and the companionship he found as a boy among the Dickensian characters at a neighborhood bar." --Los Angeles Times

"It's a fierce and funny coming-of-age story about ambition and yearning and necessary betrayals . . . superb literary brew." --Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air

"A beautiful, gravelly love letter." --Jonathan Miles, New York Times Book Review

"The only thing wrong with this terrific debut is that there has to be a closing time." --Malcolm Jones, Newsweek

-- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of J. R. Moehringer

J.R. Moehringer (pronounced Mo-ringer), is a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, and a former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 2000 for his portrait of Gee's Bend, Alabama, an isolated river town where many descendants of slaves live and where a proposed ferry to the mainland threatened to change the community. He was also a Pulitzer finalist for feature writing in 1998 for his magazine piece "Resurrecting The Champ," which chronicled heavyweight boxer Bob Satterfield's glory days -- and his demons. J.R. has claimed many other honors, as well, including a 1997 Livingston Award for Young Journalists. Before joining the Los Angeles Times, Moehringer worked as a reporter at the Rocky Mountain News and as a news assistant at the New York Times. His first book, The Tender Bar (Hyperion), reached as high as 5 on the New York Times Bestseller List. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Hyperion

Filesize

749.42 KB

Number of Pages

432

eBook ISBN

9781401386412

Awards

• Book Sense Book of the Year
• New York Times Notable Books of the Year
• Original Voices Award
• Quill Awards
• School Library Journal Best Books of the Year