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High & Dry
Stephen M. Park's High & Dry is a memoir of misadventure akin to a Hunter S. Thompson fever dream. Under the pseudonym Wilson High, Park narrates and illustrates exploits that belie the beleaguered fugue from which they came.
If you ever imagined yourself exploring the ragged edge, this is it.
High's life unfolds like an experiment gone awry. Among the myriad variables are fifty full-time jobs (including a stint as “The World's Fastest Typist”), basketball, life-threatening illnesses, addictions, the d.t.'s, gunfire, crazy companions, mental wards, jails, halfway houses, wino hotels, apprehension by the FBI, a Tijuana divorce, Scientology, The Evergreen State College and years of marijuana cultivation.
The only constant in High's life is his absurdist approach to it (like attempting, for instance, to drink himself out of alcoholism). He drifts from one fantastic adventure to the next, not searching for meaning but simply living in The Moment. The Moment can be comical or tragic, gentle or crass, beautiful or horrific. The Moment is a product of our humanity in all its perverse, ironic glory. The important thing, High reminds us, is not to shrink from the strange … but to embrace it.
If you ever imagined yourself exploring the ragged edge, this is it.
High's life unfolds like an experiment gone awry. Among the myriad variables are fifty full-time jobs (including a stint as “The World's Fastest Typist”), basketball, life-threatening illnesses, addictions, the d.t.'s, gunfire, crazy companions, mental wards, jails, halfway houses, wino hotels, apprehension by the FBI, a Tijuana divorce, Scientology, The Evergreen State College and years of marijuana cultivation.
The only constant in High's life is his absurdist approach to it (like attempting, for instance, to drink himself out of alcoholism). He drifts from one fantastic adventure to the next, not searching for meaning but simply living in The Moment. The Moment can be comical or tragic, gentle or crass, beautiful or horrific. The Moment is a product of our humanity in all its perverse, ironic glory. The important thing, High reminds us, is not to shrink from the strange … but to embrace it.
452 pages, Paperback
First published May 22, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 13, 2021
This unbelievable book is so, so good.
If you like Hunter S. Thompson or maybe Kerouac, but if you've got low tolerance for how some of those guys and their pretenders act like they're totally awesome and not at all pathetic, this is your jam.
I picked this up on a whim almost 10 years ago, and what a great decision it was. I got it in my favorite bookshopping place on the planet: The small/indie press section at Powell's on Burnside in Portland, OR.
Sadly, this section is no longer what it once was. It's fading fast, occupying just a small space where it was once the entire wall. I loved that spot. It's where I got all my first bizarro books, tons of little things that you'd never see on a bookstore shelf anywhere else unless someone with great taste died and their relatives, who were not posessed of such taste, gave all their shit away. The fools.
I kind of hated Powell's for awhile because they reduced my beloved section. But I have to be an adult about it. It can't be easy to run a bookstore, and just because that section is where my heart will live forever doesn't mean they were making any money there.
For now, let's call that the place to spread my ashes, okay? Maybe that act will bring some cachet back to the small/indie press section, and maybe it'll be weird and gross and spooky again. Just like I won't be around anymore, that section might not be around anymore, but we'll both go down together.
If you like Hunter S. Thompson or maybe Kerouac, but if you've got low tolerance for how some of those guys and their pretenders act like they're totally awesome and not at all pathetic, this is your jam.
I picked this up on a whim almost 10 years ago, and what a great decision it was. I got it in my favorite bookshopping place on the planet: The small/indie press section at Powell's on Burnside in Portland, OR.
Sadly, this section is no longer what it once was. It's fading fast, occupying just a small space where it was once the entire wall. I loved that spot. It's where I got all my first bizarro books, tons of little things that you'd never see on a bookstore shelf anywhere else unless someone with great taste died and their relatives, who were not posessed of such taste, gave all their shit away. The fools.
I kind of hated Powell's for awhile because they reduced my beloved section. But I have to be an adult about it. It can't be easy to run a bookstore, and just because that section is where my heart will live forever doesn't mean they were making any money there.
For now, let's call that the place to spread my ashes, okay? Maybe that act will bring some cachet back to the small/indie press section, and maybe it'll be weird and gross and spooky again. Just like I won't be around anymore, that section might not be around anymore, but we'll both go down together.
March 21, 2013
Stephen M. Park's protagonist, Wilson High, is everything one could ever want from the gay bastard love child of Holden Caulfield and Charles Bukowski. He is the dry and stringent tell-all with no care as to what your reaction might be, all for the sake of the story that is itching to get get out. Autobiographical High & Dry is a journey into the Archie Bunker mindset we wish we could have, yet are still too obsessed with how the world views us. An absolute voyeuristic joy from cover to cover.
June 13, 2018
This might be one of my favorite books ever. It's a memoir of a life based on the premise "life as an experiment in absurdity." The author recounts a phase of his life which he should NOT have survived. At every life juncture, when he had the choice of a safe and sane option, he went the other way. The book is simultaneously hilarious, tragic, and hopeful. I don't think I'm cut out for the kind of life he led, but it was great to read about it, way over here from a distance. Did I mention that he's a GREAT writer? Now I need to get my hands on the sequel, The Grass is Greener.
June 17, 2021
I just finished another one of the best memoirs I have ever read, HIGH & DRY by Stephen M Park. It was a madcap memoir of a drunken fool and the adventures he would get into while chasing his next drink or next high.
It's the most fun I've had reading a memoir since I first read Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.
Park was born into a well to do upper middle class Leave It To Beaver family, but as a young boy, he knew he wasn't like other kids. He had proudly announced in his elementary school class that he wanted to grow up and be a BUM, and that's just what he did.
In the rip roaring 50's, 60's & 70's, Park lived the life of a transient drugged out hippie bum, before eventually settling down in Portland, Oregon in the 80's and became a pot grower & dealer.
If you thought books like Fear And Loathing were outrageous, it has nothing on High & Dry. 432 pages that you can't stop turning because things just keep getting more and more ridiculous as this real life embodiment of THE FOOL is running off the cliffs of life, just trying to find his next high.
Shootouts in Mexico! Roommates jumping in front of buses! LSD Fueled parties where Park accidentally sets the house on fire. Working for the fire department and not knowing how anything worked, and letting a house burn down.
High & Dry is the bastard son of Thompson, but with the drunkenness and ambition of Bukowski, but missing all of Bukowski's vile hatred of humanity and exaggerations. It's a hilarious book, but it does not glorify the experience. It's a realistic look at why someone would drink themselves to death, keep going and then go back for more. In a way it's a cautionary, adventure tale, and one that will stay with me forever.
If you like Bukowski, especially Factotum and Thompson's more imbibed stories, I think you would really, really, really enjoy this book. Check it out now from University of Hell Press!!
It's the most fun I've had reading a memoir since I first read Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.
Park was born into a well to do upper middle class Leave It To Beaver family, but as a young boy, he knew he wasn't like other kids. He had proudly announced in his elementary school class that he wanted to grow up and be a BUM, and that's just what he did.
In the rip roaring 50's, 60's & 70's, Park lived the life of a transient drugged out hippie bum, before eventually settling down in Portland, Oregon in the 80's and became a pot grower & dealer.
If you thought books like Fear And Loathing were outrageous, it has nothing on High & Dry. 432 pages that you can't stop turning because things just keep getting more and more ridiculous as this real life embodiment of THE FOOL is running off the cliffs of life, just trying to find his next high.
Shootouts in Mexico! Roommates jumping in front of buses! LSD Fueled parties where Park accidentally sets the house on fire. Working for the fire department and not knowing how anything worked, and letting a house burn down.
High & Dry is the bastard son of Thompson, but with the drunkenness and ambition of Bukowski, but missing all of Bukowski's vile hatred of humanity and exaggerations. It's a hilarious book, but it does not glorify the experience. It's a realistic look at why someone would drink themselves to death, keep going and then go back for more. In a way it's a cautionary, adventure tale, and one that will stay with me forever.
If you like Bukowski, especially Factotum and Thompson's more imbibed stories, I think you would really, really, really enjoy this book. Check it out now from University of Hell Press!!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews