Pour Me: A Life

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE

Wake up! You’re at sea, it doesn’t matter which sea, it’s just the sea rising and falling. Sea-flavoured, sea-shaped, wet sea. You’re in a boat, a little boat – you’re alone in a little boat.

A. A. Gill's memoir begins in the dark of a dormitory with six strangers. He is an alcoholic, dying in the last-chance saloon.

He tells the truth - as far as he can remember it - about drinking and about what it is like to be drunk. He recalls the lost days, lost friends, failed marriages ...But there was also an 'optimum inebriation, a time when it was all golden'.

Sobriety regained, there are painterly descriptions of people and places, unforgettable musings about childhood and family, art and religion; and most movingly, the connections between his cooking, dyslexia and his missing brother.

Full of raw and unvarnished truths, exquisitely written throughout, Pour Me is about lost time and self-discovery. Lacerating, unflinching, uplifting, it is a classic about drunken abandon and an insight into the character of a man described as ‘a giant among journalists’.

A. A. Gill, the man who makes a living getting beneath the skin of things, whether it's television, restaurants or places round the world - has skinned himself – Vanity Fair

'An intense, succulent read that's intermittently dazzling' – The Times

'Chilling, exquisitely moving' – Daily Telegraph

'A superb memoir - and one of the best books on addiction I have ever read' – Evening Standard