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Ablutions: Notes for a Novel

3.63 of 5 stars 3.63 · rating details · 1,050 ratings · 167 reviews

In a famous but declining Hollywood bar works A Barman. Morbidly amused by the decadent decay of his surroundings, he watches the patrons fall into their nightly oblivion, making notes for his novel. In the hope of uncovering their secrets and motives, he establishes tentative friendships with the cast of variously pathological regulars.

But as his tenure at the bar continu...more

Hardcover, 162 pages

Published February 28th 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (first published February 2009)

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Aug 17, 2012 Sean Beaudoin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've said in other reviews that I could pretty much go the rest of my life without reading another novel set in a bar. And this one does have all the bar-book cliches: the surly bartender, the sad drunken teachers, the deteriorating regulars, the old lady that's really a man, the friendly homeless guy, the former child actor, the solo road trip. With all that said, I still really enjoyed it. The voice is rendered in a deadpan-poetic style that manages to feel fresh. The details all feel authenti...more

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Jan 06, 2009 Kevin rated it 5 of 5 stars

I predict this book is going to rock a few worlds when it appears next month. deWitt, a new Portland author, writes convincingly, hypnotically, and often humorously in an odd (but freakishly natural-sounding) 2nd person narrative voice. This is lowlife gutter drunk bar life in a revealing light--a place where the bartender ("you") are more wretched than the customers, of course until you make your great escape. A superb little debut.

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Mar 23, 2009 Carlos rated it 4 of 5 stars

this was good. for the people who described this as bukowski lite...i guess i agree. I've only read one bukowski book and it was indeed a little dark. this book's main character was someone you assume is a good guy who's gone down a dark path, and you root for him. or at least I did.

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Nov 15, 2012 Chad rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-read

I don't think it gets better than this piece of alcoholic/bar literature. "Ablutions" is sick, depraved, hilarious and poignant all at the same time. This book is a feat... a triumph, and deWitt should be hailed as a new voice in underground literature. I know what you're thinking... Great, some hipster writer who worships Bukowski and struggles to come up with his own sad sack of a story. And yes, I was skeptical, and it would be easy for me to label Patrick deWitt, the author of this gem, a me...more

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Nov 08, 2012 Sam Quixote rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I used to really love boozy, druggy novels when I was a teenager, regularly devouring books by Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Hubert Selby Jnr. and Patrick Hamilton where the protagonists were either alcoholics, drug addicts or both. But that was when I was a teenager and my literary tastes have since changed. So I was surprised to find myself drawn into Patrick deWitt’s debut novel “Ablutions” which takes place almost entirely in a dismal Hollywood bar filled with deadbeats...more I used to really love boozy, druggy novels when I was a teenager, regularly devouring books by Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Hubert Selby Jnr. and Patrick Hamilton where the protagonists were either alcoholics, drug addicts or both. But that was when I was a teenager and my literary tastes have since changed. So I was surprised to find myself drawn into Patrick deWitt’s debut novel “Ablutions” which takes place almost entirely in a dismal Hollywood bar filled with deadbeats and human detritus getting sloshed and snorting powder in the dark.

Like most people I came to deWitt after reading his excellent Booker-nominated western “The Sisters Brothers” about a pair of bounty hunters in the old West on the trail of one of their targets. It’s an excellent book which I highly recommend and led me to seek out this, his only other published novel (so far). “Ablutions” is a completely different book to “The Sisters Brothers”; where “Sisters” was a fast-paced first person narrative that read like an intelligent thriller, “Ablutions” is without a plot, told in the second person by a consistently drunk narrator, his attention reeling from one character in the bar to another seemingly at random and without any direction.

And yet “Ablutions” is still a hypnotic read. Maybe it’s the character portraits of the broken lives that litter the bar. There is a drug- addled manager, an alcoholic former child actor, two slutty drunken school teachers, a wannabe artist and a dealer, as well as corrupt bar owners and the despicable narrator. The setup is that the narrator wants to be a novelist who gets work as a bar back because he feels he will meet a number of interesting people with stories he can exploit by putting them in his novel. Combine this with the fact that the author used to work as a dishwasher/bar back and the uneven, scattered approach to writing this novel and you could almost say that the author is the narrator and that his cynical approach worked. Almost. Because the writing is too damn good to dismiss the book as opportunistic and exploitative.

The comparisons to Bukowski are only superficial. Yes it takes place in a bar, a setting which Bukowski featured prominently in many of his novels, but his writing style was far more straightforward and raw, focusing more on dialogue than prose. DeWitt includes dialogue but, as the subtitle “Notes for a Novel” suggests, much of the book is written descriptively and the style feels more lyrical. The atmosphere of the bar culture feels very real and the details are convincingly authentic. DeWitt captures life on skid row as ramshackle, scary, deeply unpleasant and ugly while portraying the mind-set of an alcoholic with mesmerising alacrity. We get to see his inner workings, believing his car is “magic” because he drives home drunk each night and never gets pulled over by police, and while at home, he hides stashes of aspirin so his wife doesn’t realise his increasing dependence on, and abuse of, substances.

He does utilise novelistic tropes that set the book apart from being a simple retelling of scenes from a bar: it’s “written” by an alcoholic narrator whose life is falling apart so the lack of cohesion in the broken layout could reflect the narrator’s scattered and unsettled mind. Also, the business model of the bar is bizarre: the staff (seemingly all alcoholics) can drink as much of anything in the bar for free while doling out free drinks to regular alcoholics who show up every night? And why is there a doorman for an establishment so low-class whose clientele are practically all homeless derelicts? How does this place make money when it’s in the hands of such reckless, irresponsible personalities? Unless a lot of this is made up and/or misremembered by an increasingly unreliable narrator who storyline becomes more unhinged as the book reaches its conclusion.

If you’re going to read this – and I do recommend it – beware that it is a slow burn. It doesn’t take a while to get going because it never really does, it trundles along at an unhurried pace throughout, occasionally giving the reader something more substantial than bar scenes. The solitary road trip to the Grand Canyon was brilliant with the scenes at the rodeo being the best in the novel. But it’s slow pacing and detailed telling of the lives of these troubled and troubling people is fantastic and the portrait of the narrator is fascinating. “Ablutions” is a good novel and well worth the time you give it, just don’t expect the kind of novel he delivered in “The Sisters Brothers”. Cheers!(less)

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Aug 20, 2012 Tyler rated it 3 of 5 stars

3.5/5

I think Patrick deWitt is a talented writer. He has a good vocabulary and there is poetry within his words. In Ablutions he uses second person and a deadpan delivery which lends a kind of apathy and disconnect from the entire experience, but not in a bad way. If you've ever had the feeling that can basically be summed up as, "fuck it," then you can relate and see the motives/personalities of the people in this book.

It's grimy, sexy, funny and sad, just like a bar. He hits the atmosphere pre...more

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Jul 07, 2009 christa rated it 3 of 5 stars

There are a few things that make me leery when reading a debut novel: 1) When one of the blurbs is by someone who is listed in the acknowledgments (Well that was nice of your friend/writing mentor/college roommate Dennis Cooper to say he loves this book very much); 2) When the book is, oh, say, about a bartender, and in the author's short bio on the back flap it says, for instance " ... Oregon, where he currently resides ... blah blah ... has worked as ... a bartender."

Patrick DeWitt probably co...more There are a few things that make me leery when reading a debut novel: 1) When one of the blurbs is by someone who is listed in the acknowledgments (Well that was nice of your friend/writing mentor/college roommate Dennis Cooper to say he loves this book very much); 2) When the book is, oh, say, about a bartender, and in the author's short bio on the back flap it says, for instance " ... Oregon, where he currently resides ... blah blah ... has worked as ... a bartender."

Patrick DeWitt probably could have found a stranger to say nice things about his novel "Ablutions: Notes for a Novel," an alternative-format story told in vignettes and character sketches, and starring the dozen-or-so regulars this guy encounters while working at a bar in Hollywood. And by "this guy" I mean "You." "Ablutions" is written in second person. The nerve.

There is a cocaine addled manager, an alcoholic former child actor, two school teachers, an artist and a dealer. For awhile there is a wife, but never at the bar. Our hero, or should I say "You," is an Irish Whiskey kinda guy, matching customers shot for shot, then driving home in a seemingly magic car that attracts no attention from police. Time passes, more drinks are had, more after-bars, then the kind of storage room gropings that proper lighting cannot justify. You are going downhill fast, and regularly take more than the recommended daily allowance of aspirin.

This is a nice enough read. Interesting. Characters examined on only that very surface level with which one regular gets to know another regular in any bar setting. There is a random road trip thrown into the latter half of the story for no real reason, and where once you were showing signs of fatal alcoholism, you manage to sort of taper your consumption when a new business opportunity presents itself. And of course, the final part of the story is where the chaos erupts, or as I like to say, where in the TV-movie the clarinets go apeshit to represent complete mayhem.

Sometimes I hate that good writers don't know how to end books without resorting to that nonsense. I forgave DeWitt quite a few things, but this is not one of them. (less)

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Aug 26, 2011 Diarmuid Hester rated it 2 of 5 stars

Mildly entertaining story about the life of an alcoholic bartender and his clientele. The author's use of the second-person serves to interpellate the reader as narrator while the atomised, aposiopetic narration withholds any ultimate immersion in this identity: i.e. it is by turns attractive and repellent - a formal device which serves to substantiate a persistent moral vacillation (in the protagonist; in the reader).

In spite of this, Ablutions doesn't really have much to recommend it: it is n...more

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Feb 14, 2009 Mike rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: amazon-vine

This near-novel presents the reader with a barman observing the depressing lives of the alcoholics and drug addicts who come to the seedy bar where he works. Having worked in the bar for six years, the main character (only identified as a second person "you") has allowed himself to gradually adopt behaviors similar to the customers. This is far from a good thing. As he drinks himself into oblivion behind the bar, his life disintegrates; the most notable evidence of this is the break-up of his ma...more This near-novel presents the reader with a barman observing the depressing lives of the alcoholics and drug addicts who come to the seedy bar where he works. Having worked in the bar for six years, the main character (only identified as a second person "you") has allowed himself to gradually adopt behaviors similar to the customers. This is far from a good thing. As he drinks himself into oblivion behind the bar, his life disintegrates; the most notable evidence of this is the break-up of his marriage, which appears to be the one thing positive in his life. The author pulls no punches and presents alcoholism and the seedy underside of barlife in a thoroughly disturbing and unrelentingly bleak fashion.

Aside from the wife, there is not a single character that the reader truly sympathizes with. I get the feeling DeWitt strives to write something like _Jesus' Son_ here but his characters lack the appeal and humanity of Denis Johnson's addicts. As I read, I am assuming I should be hoping that the main character ("you") is ultimately able to redeem himself and fix his life but he is so unsympathetic that I just wanted to turn away from the trainwreck of his life, which may very well be the intent of the author.

As for the "Notes for a Novel" thing (the book is told in short notes about the characters and episodes for presumably the bartender (you) to eventually compile into a novel), it doesn't read like a clever commentary on the novel or even a clever literary gimmick but as the idea of an author who could not string together disparate sections into a cohesive whole. It feels like a novel the author gave up on or a throwaway project from a writing workshop. The end in particular feels forced, as if he is just trying to wrap things up and get this project finished. Having said all that, I will say that the book is well written and good prose always impresses me and keeps me reading. DeWitt has talent and, though this book does not fully realize it, he might be an author to watch if he can find a better, less overworked subject.(less)

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Oct 27, 2010 Patrick O'Neil rated it 5 of 5 stars

Patrick deWitt's Ablutions is bleak and his minimalist style does nothing to dispel the bleakness – in fact it promotes it. There's endless dark vignettes, vile sexual encounters, and character studies of the bar patrons and his life as a bartender/bar back (it is never quite clear what he does, except drink a lot). His dismal relationships, or lack there of, dominate the plot – although in all fairness, there isn't any plot per say, as the subtitle of the book explains these are: Notes for a No...more

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Jul 05, 2009 Ken rated it 5 of 5 stars

For his first novel Patrick Dewitt has dredged the drunken swamp of his bar hall years and his own imagination to bring to the surface a gang of dark bar fly characters that were born by some of most memorable language I've read this year. In any novel. We are led through this journey, a swirling toilet flush of a downward spiral, by the bar back at a once famous Hollywood bar. He introduces us to the regulars which are overall a seedy bunch but each one fascinating in their own way. The bar is...more

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Jan 11, 2013 Kristin added it

Shelves: abandoned-for-now

Patrick deWitt is possibly the author I most admire in our time. His writing is extraordinary. Because of this, I got through this just for the duration of the scene with the main character high on pills in the shower. I knew all along that this book was like watching an extremely talented artist build, using nothing but cheap craft supplies and old t-shirts, an entirely lifelike sculpture of a person having their red insides torn out by animals while still alive (drawing the audience by the she...more

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Aug 13, 2009 Matt reed rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a decadent indulgence. It definitely reminded me of reading Bukowski and instilling that urge to head down to a local watering hole to engage and be entertained by the lower and often despondent rungs of urban life. I was intrigued by the NY Times book review that echoed caparisons to Fante and Hamsun. While I can certainly see the former's shadow in the writing, it was hard for me to compare to Hansun with the exception of some slight parallels to "Hunger."

However, this aside it was a...more

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May 21, 2009 Chloe added it

As the subtitle implies, Ablutions: Notes for a Novel is not a conventional work of fiction. The bar-back narrator remains nameless; there is little plot; the text is highly segmented; and the word "discuss," followed by a person's name, is the most frequently used transition from one section to the next. Although filled with this imperative and told in the present tense, Ablutions depicts a static world -- a Los Angeles bar -- where characters pass their time in a haze of drugs and alcohol. It...more

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Oct 12, 2011 Clifdisc rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ablutions is Patrick deWitt's first novel, a darkly comedic look into the decaying lives of LA barflies written from the perspective of an equally self-destructive bar-hand. The novel is written in second person narrative which has the disturbing effect of putting you in the protagonist's unpleasant and increasingly ugly skin.

I love Patrick deWitt's tone which is by turns humorous, melancholy, whimsical, dark and surreal. The book is at its best when this tone elevates the mundane to the mystica...more

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Mar 13, 2012 Corey Atad rated it 2 of 5 stars

After loving Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers, I wanted to read more from the author. He only had one other published novel, so I bought a copy of Ablutions and set to reading. I won’t deny how happy I was to see that the book was very short. Not even 200 pages! This was going to be an easy read. And while the prose was certainly easy and enjoyable, the content was dark and difficult. It took getting through the whole book to come to terms with wether deWitt had gone too far in his dark dep...more

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Jun 22, 2012 Dorothy Tu rated it 3 of 5 stars

I admit - this books just feels like the result of a creative writing class/assignment. The writing style is reminiscent of someone who is experimenting with descriptions (do I want to be simple or ornate?), all the while reaching for some higher, bigger meaning but not quite getting there.

That being said, I thought that this was an effectively dark, truthful account of "bar culture" (as someone else said before), alcoholism, and the deranged shit that just goes on when you're that far in the de...more

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Apr 16, 2012 Austin Storm added it

Shelves: ebooks, read-2012

Note: I have stopped giving star reviews, having decided arbitrarily and pretentiously that they are reductionist.

This is a horrible, horrifying novel about an alcoholic bartender, his alcoholic patrons and his life's endless debasements.

The only impressive thing about it is the second person narrative, used very effectively to create an odd distance and a feeling of being underwater the whole time.

Would have quit halfway through, but was able to finish it in one day. I was hoping for redemption...more

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Dec 09, 2011 Amy Lloyd rated it 2 of 5 stars

I can't stand writing in the second person, "You walk in to the bar, you drink whiskey, you think blah blah blah." it's weak. This book is Creative Writing 101 bad. For me, anyway. I found the protagonist repulsive and irritating and as a result had nothing to root for in the book. The other characters were boring stereotypes. On the back it was compared to Bukowski, which is just crazy. This book had no soul, it was just an account of some idiots getting drunk. The minimalist style didn't leave...more

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Oct 12, 2012 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

This is a novel equally about hating work and loving booze. No. That isn't true. This is a novel that is about hating work and drinking booze and hating yourself. It belongs on your untidy shelf next to Under the Volcano, Leaving Las Vegas, Appointment in Samarra and Tender is the Night. IT is a fuzzy, high-energy migrane of a novel and that is part of its clouded brilliance.

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Feb 17, 2012 Andrew Porteus rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction, humour

A darkly humourous novel about a man originally bartending and making notes for his novel, but becoming caught up in the world of alcohol, powders and differently coloured pills inhabited by the denizens of the bar he is employed at. During his descent he loses his marriage and his health, finally rescued when he starts pilfering from the bar itself. A tremendous depiction of the world of alcoholism and addiction, with short vignettes of into the lives of many of the bar patrons, and in a memora...more

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Jan 24, 2013 Alexandra rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

Ablutions preceded deWitt's Sisters Brothers, but I'm a bit surprised that this one didn't get recognized earlier. It's quite a dark story about a barman's addiction and his troubled relationships with himself and the people he encounters. The book is written from the second person point of view; however, this didn't bother me at all while reading it, but some readers may find the 'you's annoying.

Reading this collection of sketches with its motley cast of characters had me cringing at the more...more

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Apr 13, 2012 John Damaso rated it 3 of 5 stars

The second-person point-of-view, at first, seemed like a gimmick, but after the longish first chapter, I realized the narrator was not apprising me of my own story but he was describing to himself how everything fell apart.

DeWitt describes the regulars at this Hollywood bar with sincerity and spite and the matter-of-fact accounts of depraved behaviors help normalize some revolting facts of alcoholism. Both sides of the bar are complicit.

In the novel's finish push to the open road of Utah and Ari...more

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Feb 27, 2009 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Patrick deWitt's debut novel has a superb hook: a bartender in a Hollywood bar collects notes about his clientele — the coke dealer, the transvestite, the cop fetishist, the alcoholic child actor, etc. Although the tone is as curiously detached as a 19th-century naturalist's ("Discuss Junior, the black crack addict"), the gruesome catalog of his customers' failings is spliced with confessions of the bartender's epic consumption of Irish whiskey and whatever drugs he can get his hands on. These e...more Patrick deWitt's debut novel has a superb hook: a bartender in a Hollywood bar collects notes about his clientele — the coke dealer, the transvestite, the cop fetishist, the alcoholic child actor, etc. Although the tone is as curiously detached as a 19th-century naturalist's ("Discuss Junior, the black crack addict"), the gruesome catalog of his customers' failings is spliced with confessions of the bartender's epic consumption of Irish whiskey and whatever drugs he can get his hands on. These excesses, which are rendered in the second person, are pursued with persistence and determination until the line that separates the bartender from the "lowlifes" is first blurred, and then obliterated.

Then things get steadily worse. Abandoned by his wife, the bartender embarks on a series of stomach-turning sexual encounters that only the most depraved people would call "erotic." He takes a trip to the desert in the hope of finding redemption, and nearly gets his brains stomped out by a shitkicker at the World's Oldest Rodeo. He returns to the unnamed Hollywood dive bar more shattered than when he left, and starts skimming the till to build up a stake, so he'll have something to fall back on when everything eventually collapses.

Ablutions is an unstinting book about drinking and drugging that will inevitably draw comparisons to Charles Bukowski and Denis Johnson, but deWitt's clipped and grimly humorous observations of the doomed are also reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson in his prime. Like his Gonzo forebear, deWitt's bartender is a first-class son-of-a-bitch (he knowingly infects a customer with Hepatitis C and plies problem drunks with free alcohol until they're incapacitated), yet his brutal wit ("stimulants were for the brainless rich") and shameless audacity make him sympathetic, because his deviant behavior is presented with the force of an accusation. He seems to know what's at stake — but does he? Does anyone who spends that much time in bars?

Like a rat leaping from a burning ship, the bartender escapes, but the ending fails to satisfy completely. An addict with a load of cash should mark the beginning of a bad bender, not the end of an otherwise unforgettable book.

(Originally published in the February edition of BoldType.)
(less)

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Dec 18, 2012 culley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: drugs-and-alcohol, los-angeles, favorites, anti-villain, character-studies

The story of a horrible, wicked bartender. He describes the awful people in the bar and is himself no better. He is likable and well liked but has an undeniable evil streak.

I read this book because I liked The Sisters Brothers so much. In Ablutions there is some of the humor and traces of the charm seen in The Sisters Brothers but it is, on the whole, darker. Unfortunately Ablutions is written in the second person. I found this an unnecessary distraction. The book would have been better in the f...more

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Aug 29, 2011 Graham Faught rated it 4 of 5 stars

A great read after picking this book up in a closing Borders store. An aside from the novel itself, this was a book I thought for sure I was going to have to grab online and so I have to give Borders much thanks for adding this novel to its shelves!

This book took some getting used to so far as the "voice" for me, but once it became natural, the book was a breeze to read. All of the characters were interesting and while at times cliche in feeling, DeWitt made each of them his own.

Others may have...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Dirk rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm glad I didn't read the book blurb before I ordered this novel, because the phrase "decadent decay" is just--how shall I say this--badly bad. Ablutions is the story of a bartender who is flushing his life down the toilet, and since he won't go down all at once, every vignette is an additional jiggling of the handle. The characters, each a lowlife of one sort or another, are competently sketched, but lack depth and development. Maybe that's a faithful representation of a way of life in the L.A...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Misssally rated it 4 of 5 stars

A gorgeous, bleak and powerful novel about the horrors and titillations of addiction and self-destruction..I love this author, he's quite obviously a brilliant writer, I would hesitate, however, to hang out with him. His protagonists have a marvelous disconnect-he manages to ensure the reader feels more invested in their good health and happiness than they themselves are, it's a good technique, but a little exhausting.
I highly recommend this page-turner, but be warned-it's not for the squeamish....more

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Aug 08, 2012 Erik rated it 2 of 5 stars

In structure, this does remind me of, exactly as the subtitle implies, "Notes for a Novel". Maybe notes for a novel done for a creative writing class assignment.

The portraits of the characters are somewhat well done, if a bit hackneyed, and the voice is compellingly readable. That said, the attempts to place a narrative structure on the material are clumsy and the ending nearly laughable.

While he did occasionally stumble across a truth or two, as a bartender, I found the author's dwelling almost...more

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Oct 23, 2011 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

After reading The Sisters Brothers, Ablutions came as a bit of a shock. DeWitt took me to some dark, dark places in this story of a downward-spiraling bartender. I liked the plot-less, yet compelling form: bartender as focal point to the cast of alcoholic, damaged and just-plain-odd regulars that frequent his bar. It almost reads like a book of short stories up to a point, then focuses more on the bartender whose life is turning sour. A fun read for folks who aren't scared off by a little scatol...more

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About Patrick deWitt

Patrick deWitt was born on Vancouver Island in 1975. He is the author of Help Yourself Help Yourself (2007, Teenage Teardrops), Ablutions (Feb. 09, Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt/Granta), which was named a New York Times Editors' Choice book, and The Sisters Brothers (May 2011, Ecco/House of Anansi). He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and son.

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