false 62587416 570663 5291478 0151014981 9780151014989 34 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5291478.Ablutions_Notes_for_a_Novel 3.78 85 A classic tale of addiction and its consequences as well as a brilliant, often comic twist on the novel, set in, at, and behind the bar

In a famous but declining Hollywood bar works a bartender. 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 continues, he begins to serve himself more often than his customers, and the moments he lives outside the bar become more and more painful: he loses his wife, his way, himself. Trapped by his habits and his loneliness, he realizes he will not survive if he doesn't break free of his life and the bar. And so he hatches a terrible, necessary plan of escape and his only chance at redemption. Ablutions brings readers behind the bar, below rock bottom, and beyond the everyday take on storytelling.]]> 1041872 3.91 102 40 3 0 false Tue Jul 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 07 23:18:25 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 07 23:20:45 -0700 2009