Closing Time

by Joe Queenan

Recounts the author's Irish-Catholic upbringing in a 1960s Philadelphia housing project, a youth marked by his alcoholic father's volatile temper, a series of mentors and surrogate fathers, and the author's struggles to forge a more promising future through his love for books and music.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Autobiography, Audiobook, Adult

352 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2009

About the author

Joe Queenan is a humorist, critic and author from Philadelphia who graduated from Saint Joseph's University. He has written for numerous publications, such as Spy Magazine, TV Guide, Movieline, The Guardian and the New York Times Book Review. He has written eight books, including Balsamic Dreams, a scathing critique of the Baby Boomers, Red Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon, a tour of low-brow American pop culture and Imperial Caddy, a fairly scathing view of Dan Quayle and the American Vice-Presidency.

Queenan's work is noted for his caustic wit.

Reviews

[Tdonnelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This may be the first book I've put down in a good long time. If you haven't read this book, you may consider these points:

Joe Queenan isn't really all that funny in this book. He takes pains to put in what he thinks are hilarious descriptions which tend to be overwritten, overwrought, and aimed primarily at making English professors titter.

This book was in dire need of a good editor. I'm halfway through it and it's just too damn long. Yes, I know his father is an alcoholic who beats him and that his mother is hiding down the way reading newspapers, but to hear it again and again still by page 115 doesn't make any sense. There's a good story here, but there's so many detours you may give up on it before you get to your destination.

If you were looking for a book to make you feel like you're a good father, you found it. Queenan's dad was a nightmare and I give him accolades for making it out of that home without turning into a hardened criminal. I'm serious about the "good dad" thing - this book makes you feel good just by being a good husband and father and not worrying that you aren't the Hollywood director you thought you'd be in high school.

[Larry Bassett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This could be the topic sentence for the first quarter of this book:

When your father is an unemployed alcoholic and your mother has four children she can’t feed and may not even love, and there is no car and no TV and no telephone and no prospects, finding out that a stranger has donated a can of artichoke hearts to the cause is not likely to fill a child’s heart with joy.

As I began reading I thought that maybe I knew too much about poverty and alcoholism to really learn anything from Closing Time. And maybe in spite of the author’s attempts at humor, I just wasn’t going to find poverty and alcoholism that funny. My experience of poverty is only academic and secondhand. I have been a welfare worker during both the impressionable and older wise periods of my life. I have worked in low income housing projects where people actually had food stolen from their refrigerators. I have approved many $50 per month additions to the ADC check to pay for false teeth since good teeth were one of the things that the politicians and bureaucrats could agree were essential to escape from poverty.

Joe Queenan experienced his childhood in the 1950s in Philadelphia. And just in case you get the impression that his life was miserable, let me assure you that he has many positive things to say. You will see evidence of a love/hate relationship with his father as well as his relationship with the Catholic Church, a couple of favorite uncles and a couple of men who employed him part time in his teenage years. His writing is filled with sociology and psychology that is often viewed as folk wisdom.

The predicament I found myself in was clear. My dad was a drunk, his dad was a drunk, his dad had probably been a drunk, and unless I played my cards right, I was going to end up a drunk, too. This was not shaping up as an idyllic childhood. The same held true for my sisters. We had landed in a perilous situation and our survival was by no means assured. We were going to need outside help, lots of it. I knew this to be a fact. I also knew that if I did not get a break, I was going to be crushed beneath the wheel like so many others who had started out poor. If I did not get a break, I was going to be trapped in the underclass forever, where the cuisine would be execrable and the sculling would be at an absolute minimum. If I did not get a break, I was going to end up exactly like my father, a miserable, deranged, booze-soaked failure.

You can see that Mr. Queenan likes his vocabulary. You might be able to figure out what “execrable” means but “sculling” may seem slightly out of place. You will find obscure words and references to historic events and places throughout and may find it interesting to look into the etymologies and meanings but you may just conclude that these will not likely be useful crossword puzzle words and will just make the book longer than you might like it to be. I give Mr. Q points for oddity or oddballness but I did not attempt to follow all the trails he blazed. Some of the words that puzzled me: sententious speeches, with the rapture of a Savonarola, in this congress of poltroons, the fearsome suzerainty, and there a plenty more.

If you have some personal pain or humor in relationship to Catholicism, and don’t mind being a tad sacrilegious, you may give Closing Time some extra points. If you are an ACOA, you may hate or love this book. It is obvious by now I am sure, that if you never want to hear about Irish Catholic alcoholics again, skip this book. For an insider or ex-insider I am sure that the author’s reciting his boyhood dreams of becoming a priest – or maybe a saint – will bring a laugh.

He called his father a drunk “because its harsh, primordial texture captures the essence of the beast” and “is a coarse, besodden word that deprives the waterlogged quadruped of even the tiniest pretension to dignity. It makes a drunk sound like what he is.”

He had only a little to say about AA, but what he did say was scathing. His father trying to make amends the AA way made him as angry as anything his father ever did. Joe Queenan stopped drinking totally himself by simply making a decision not to drink. “I never drank again.” He liked the idea of being a drunk as a “sign of weak moral character.” He knew that “reinventing alcoholism as a medical condition was despicable.” Mr. Q came to his conclusions about alcoholism from the best source he knew: his life with his father. But the point of this book is not to convince you that his conclusions are correct and to believe that Mr. Q is right on. It is a story about how one man lived his life as the son of a drunk for 46 years. The story ends when the drunk dies.

Wrap it up in a few words? “We wanted him dead or we wanted him gone.” This is a love hate battle: “As my father’s death approached I made a laundry list of the things I admired about him. The list was surprisingly long.”

I had a hard time getting through the first quarter of the book. I felt hammered by the repetitious tale of the life of a family with an alcoholic father. But then I gradually saw the “MY FATHER WAS A DRUNK” calm down and the focus shift to stories of growing up poor, relationships, school, afterschool jobs, girl friends and other family members. The book then kept me interested and turning the pages.

This is the first book by Joe Queenan that I have read and I believe it is somewhat different from his other books in that it is directly personal. I think I would have to read some of his other books to better understand his writing style and humor. It is hard for me to find much humor in a brutal alcoholic but there is definitely some caustic wit and some interesting beliefs about alcoholism. This is a toss up between three and four stars but I narrowly come down on the three star side. My sense is that Mr. Queenan writes a lot that doesn’t make it into print. I should read another of his books but his GR star ratings do not give me much encouragement or direction.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is wonderful. This is the second time I've read it and I am enjoying it (if that is the right word) even more the second time around.

Unlike many reviewers, I have not only read every single book by Queenan - all of which are completely different from this - but I have liked or loved them all as well. This one is better and deeper and more sharply drawn. His anger and his disappointment shine through this honest, bitter, funny, sad book - along with his mixed up loyalty and love.

Books and mentors are his salvation... a lifeline out of the projects. And the joy he takes in savoring strange and interesting words is palpable. Like Frank McCourt, he tells a grim story with humor and a rich vocabulary. And why not? For both, language is a treasure any boy can find for free and have for his very own. McCourt discovers Shakespeare and pronounces the words to be as jewels in your mouth... Your house may be a shanty but your mind, a palace.

Another saving grace in Queenan's life (and in McCourt's ) is humor. Bleak and bitter and hilarious by turns, both authors find in humor a way to put all the darkness of a childhood without hope or safety, into survivable perspective.

I would call this a new world Angela's Ashes. If we don't cry, it's only because Queenan refuses to. Sure I looked up a few words. And that's fine. I have had to do that with writers like Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens and Susan Sontag. It never hurts to increase your vocabulary. I think when we are reading weighty tomes by great thinkers, we expect to do this. I imagine the reason many readers don't like it when Queenan does it, is that he is a regular Joe, like us... telling a run-of-the mill, up-from-poverty story. His story is no different at the start, from hundreds of others.

But language and literature and culture and music and helpful mentors reach down and rescue this one.

Those crazy words and turns of phrase belong in a crappy little Philadelphia project as much as they belong anywhere - because they were always the secret treasure of the have-nots.

They may not have food or a car. They may have their TV taken away in the middle of Rin Tin Tin. They may eat uncooked spaghetti in a snowstorm. They may not even have parents who like them.

But they can have their own intellect, free libraries, and as rich a vocabulary as William F. Buckley. Joe Queenan avails himself of the first two, then gleefully waves the last at us as he hightails it out of Philadelphia forever.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

[Mike Clinton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Queenan recounts his tough childhood in a working-class Irish-American family from Philly and points out matter-of-factly (although with sardonic flavor) how he learned to come to terms with it. My main motivation for reading this was because of the demographic parallels to my own childhood, although Queenan's experience with his brutal drunken father and coldly indifferent mother are of another order altogether. Queenan's observations about working-class outlooks and assumptions, the character and culture of Philly in the late 20th century, the effect of discovering other places and options, left me nodding my head knowingly - a lot like Alfred Lubrano's book "Limbo" about the world of "straddlers" who grew up in the working class but then made their way into the professional middle class. Queenan pays his respects to several men who served - often unwittingly - as surrogate fathers and life mentors, but he's more often biting and bitter in his depictions of the people who surround him in his youth. Some of these people may deserve it - or at least it seems relevant to the purpose of his memoir for Queenan to let his bile flow; quite a few times, though, it seems like Queenan goes out of his way to settle a distant, petty score against someone best left long forgotten. Colorful turns of phrase, funny and elaborate references, pointed irony are the key elements to Queenan's writing style, which is enjoyable in itself, although he can lay it on a bit thick from time to time, making the phrase, image, analogy stretched and contrived. I'm glad that I started the year off with this book, since I felt a connection with the author, something that's lacking in what I'm reading now - John Banville's "The Sea".

[Melody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not unlike Queenan, I read my way into the middle class. I am familiar with a lot of the prejudices and knee-jerk attitudes he describes. I was much, much luckier than he, inasmuch as both my parents loved me and did their level best for me. Like him, I adore the English language in all its fearsome glory, and endeavor to use it in a manner befitting its incandescent variety.

Unlike Queenan, I'm not an unreconstructed, condescending prick.

This memoir was grueling. The horror that was Queenan's childhood is limned here in letters of fire. The reaction to that childhood is still happening, and it's uncomfortable to witness. There's enough backlash and bitterness to last several lifetimes here- and not without justification. His dad was a right bastard, make no mistake about it. Queenan's claims to have moved beyond his childhood ring hollow in the face of the evidence presented here, though. I think he's doing well to have merely survived.

[Mike Reuther · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Queenan's rise from poverty to successful writer makes for one of the best memoirs I've ever read. Queenan's father, an abusive alcoholic and dreamer, cast a considerable shadow over him. But Queenan was determined not to be like his old man or repeat his mistakes. Thanks to his own yearnings to be a writer, he managed to do just that. After forsaking the idea of being a priest, Queenan set out looking for other role models, and some of them are here. There's plenty of humorous episodes, and Queenan's descriptions of some of the men he worked for as a teenager and even admired - not to mention the colorful cast of Philadelphia characters who march across these pages - had me laughing out loud as I read this book. By the time Queenan has become a published author and his father is dying, he has somewaht come to terms with him and the less-than happy memories of his boyhood. For Queenan fans familiar with his sardonic, often unforgiving view on culture and society, there's plenty of that here as well.

[Gina · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best memoirs I've ever read. Probably because I can identify with Queenan's childhood and escape from the working class. There are mentors along the way, most of them eccentrics that jump right off the page - and they make for hysterical reading. Ultimately though, books are what got him through. His writing can be incredibly caustic, but it's always honest and uplifting (which seems a weird way to describe it, but that's what I feel).

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joe Queenan, contributor to NYT, magazines and author of nine books reveals hair curling scenarios from his childhood of poverty in Queens Village, Philadelphia.
Queenan's story is compelling. The book is difficult to put down. I think it is difficult when you, yourself, have succeeded in spite of a seriously dysfunctional childhood. With harm and not help from parents, you wonder to what heights you could have flown with educated parents who gave even half a damn!
From that source springs Queenan's anger at his drunken Father who beats him and his sisters and encourages little Joe to lie to his Mother.
Queenan goes to great lengths to have us comprehend the emotional toll that poverty takes on children. It really helps us see that not having what the middle class has ensures that one generation after another never will! Queenan's prose is brash and clear and seductive. He also brings back a richness of memory of life in The Philadelphia region of the Fifties and Sixties. I feared that to read this memoir, I would need to read a more interesting book in tandem, but this book stands firmly on it's own merits! This book has its strong points in humor and information about the myriad of communities and myths that make up the place called The City Of Brotherly Love.
But it could profit immensely by an editor looking for the story's core. I suspect the divergent nature merely reflects the pain endured by the author reliving a life of confusion and disbelief. When parents are unable or refuse to explain their own origins and what their lives have been about, children are left with their own anger and emptiness. Trying to construct a new story for themselves and a new family is their brave hope and the hope of America!

[Joanne Clarke Gunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the hundreds of memoirs I have read, this memoir is certainly one of the best. It is the very well-written, heartbreaking, and at times, uproariously funny account of Joe Queenan's childhood growing up in the poor and downtrodden neighborhoods of 1950's and 60's Philadelphia. The story centers around the author's extremely difficult relationship with his alcoholic and incredibly abusive father. Although the story of the alcoholic, abusive, constantly unemployed, and down-on-his-luck father has been told many times before, it is Queenan's gift for story telling and language that makes this book stand out.

Queenan decides at an early age to escape the doldrums of Philly and the terror of his drunken father and sets about it in a most determined way by seeking out jobs, books, education, friends, and experiences that take him away from his miserable home life (including a stint in a theological school embracing a youthful flirtation with piousness and becoming a priest). The stories of the many characters he meets along the way are interesting and often laugh-out-loud funny. Along with the New York Time Book Review Notable Books of 2009, I highly recommend this book.

[Esme · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was excited when I heard Joe Queenan talking about his book on NPR, I've read three of his other books and I enjoy his cranky humor, and his half-put-on smug sense of superiority as he skewers American banalities, and while there were many very humorous and poignant sections in this book, I was absolutely driven to distraction by Queenan's instance on using obscure words. I was stopped in my tracks at least twice on nearly every page, to puzzle over word meanings. I consider myself a fairly literate person. I took the GRE, and memorized my fair share of ridiculously pretentious words but come on!

Examples: "suzerainty," "caliginous," "escutcheon," "panjandrums,"
"sybaritic," "satraps," and "poltroons." He describes one person as having "Good Soldier Schweik hair" (page 54) and I searched the internet trying to figure out what that meant, and I still don't know!

I have to figure that most readers aren't going to stop, like I did, write these words down and look them up. Next time Mr. Queenan includ a glossary.

[Elly Sands · Rating 3 out of 5]

Queenan is an example of how someone can survive their terrible, abusive childhood and rise above it all. His intelligence, determination and hard work awarded him the education he so passionately wanted and it eventually gave him the writing career he excels at today. He may be considered arrogant, pompous and maybe even rude with his opinions but we learn the basis of this and can understand it better. I grew up near Philadelphia so it was nostalgic reading about familiar places and it's fun to think we may have crossed paths at a Jimi Hendrix or Doors concert.

[JMM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Closing Time is a depiction of the author’s childhood and of his violent, alcoholic father, and an account of the life that he created in reaction to his upbringing. Queenan is at once penetratingly analytic, passionate, opinionated, humorous. He gave me much food for thought – about the soul-sucking hardships of poverty, and about choice and how we come to terms with our lives, each in our own fashion.

[Linda Moran · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having endured a good, old fashioned, strict, Irish Catholic upbringing myself I could definitely identify in certain ways which shall not be mentioned here. However, unlike McCourt, this Irish author’s lamentations are so heavy-handed with self-deprecation and sorrow, and so lacking in much-needed humorous respite, that by the middle of the book I was ready to shoot myself in the foot for all the grief I’d endured and by the end of it- the other one.

[Mattcale3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually hate memoirs, but Queenan is so refreshingly bitter that I couldn't help but be warmed by the cynicism. He hated his father then, hates him now, and is openly glad he's dead. Witty, charming, and like a punch in the face for all those who look to family for comfort.

[Jennifer Glick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just finished, love Joe even when he uses words like brobindingian.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually make it a point not to rate/review memoir and autobiography books about abuse and/or mental illness, since it always feels like I'm looking at somebody who just got hit by a train and is smeared on the tracks and complaining that they didn't stick the landing. But something about this book weirded me out.

I can't remember where I got the recommendation for this book, but I suspect it was an article on narcissistic parents, since that's ostensibly what this book is about. It sounded frighteningly familiar, actually; like Joe Queenan, I was raised Catholic (although German/Czech Catholic instead of Irish), grew up in an impoverished area (although impoverished in a rural sense--a beast of a different nature entirely), with a father who was less of a helpless alcoholic and more of an abusive jerk who used alcohol to excuse his ass-hattery. It seems we even served the same roles in our families, the caretaker who shoulders more than their fair share of responsibility.

I think most of my issue is the giant generational divide. A lot of the book is written to reflect society as it was when Queenan was a boy, which means a lot of racial slurs are tossed about and a lot of referring to women as sluts or tarts. I realize it's good to avoid glossing over the awful politics of the '50s, '60s, '70s, but at the same time it doesn't feel like much reflection went into the language. My millennial sensibilities are grievously offended.

Queenan also uses a lot of unnecessarily complicated words and phrasing. Maybe that's just what he does--I wouldn't know, I've never read any of his other works and now have no desire to. It makes everything seems very academic, or clinical, or something. It's not that there isn't a place for that, but for pages at a time I'd zone out and start flicking through again like it's an hour before religion class and I still haven't read through my entire Benedictine Order.

That said, the ending (the ending-ending; the epilogue) was really hard-hitting. It's Queenan recalling the only time he, his father, and his son spent time together as a family, and it paints a bittersweet picture of a preadolescent boy, his father, and his sick, almost homeless grandfather walking around the Philidelphia, taking in the sights of the city in autumn. I'm picturing the whole scene being directed by Robert Zemeckis with the Michael Crawford cover of On Eagle's Wings playing on the soundtrack. I'm not crying, you're crying.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Normally I'd feel guilty that it took me eight months to finish a friend's book. But I didn't want to carry my hardback around (to preserve it as well as my back), and this was a busy, stressful year in which I probably had the time to read more, but I lacked the head space. And this book deserves full attention.

I've read several times that "Closing Time" will amplify a person's preexisting feelings about Queenan--which are often love or hate. Maybe. This was a page turner for me, and a book that I'll come back to, to read again. The writing is sharp, funny, heartbreaking, breathtaking: always vivid, sometimes uncomfortable. And it's not just a story of Joe's abusive father, or of growing up poor in Philadelphia. It's a story of class, particularly of escaping the working class. It's also a story of a time period and a certain kind of American that have all but died out.

Only Queenan will tell you about getting "sucker-punched by the One True Church"; the fedora-wearing, lifesaving uncle who called him and his sisters "pretty good coconuts" and drove them on daylong jaunts for pizza--thinly veiled escapes from their father and their housing project; about teaching himself "the causes of the French and Indian war, the latitude and longitude of Timbuktu, the composition of the Spartan phalanx, the philosophical underpinnings of the bicameral legislative system.... who Sennacherib was, what he was famous for, and how the reign of Ashurbanipal fit into the grand scheme of things, dead certain that this information might one day come in handy."

On p. 81 of the hardback, Joe says, "Everyone who is saved is saved because someone tossed him or her a lifeline...." Throughout his youth, Joe found mentors and surrogate fathers, and he pays them stirring homage here. So much of this book resonated with me, maybe that most of all. I wish I could have made "Closing Time" last even longer.

[M Rothenbuhler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Queenan was an unknown entity to me when I sat down to read this autobiography. I am so glad I took the time.

Somehow he manages to tersely assess horrific moments without falling down on the one hand into maudlin self-pity, and yet not falling down on the other hand into stiff upper lip machismo.

People in this autobiography are not portrayed as total black and white, but in studied shades of grey. His times of self-assessment seem balanced and honest.

The effect of well-meaning and well-acting adults in his life, as opposed to his father and his sort of absent mother, is heartening. It seems to me at the end of things that they managed to pull this young man far enough along that he did not wipe out.

I particularly enjoy the setting of time and place, Philadelphia in the 60s, without all the hippie rah-rah. This is how most of America spent the 60s (not growing up with a rage-a-holic, but along this trajectory and in this environment) - not all getting high and raging against whatever machine.

I found his fondness and appreciation for the serious Catholics in his life, despite his avowed lack of personal faith, to be refreshingly honest and respectful.

I recommend this autobiography for those interested in studying this time and place, and those trying to understand adult children of alcoholics and abusers. Occasional bad language mars the book for me, although, perhaps if he is honestly accounting events in his life some of it is just reportage.

I now plan to read more of his books/essays and hope they are at the same par.

[trickgnosis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this primarily because Queenan grew up a generation before me in roughly the same parts of Philly that my family is from and where I spent my earliest years. And frankly what I enjoyed most about it was Queenan's confirmation of some of my own ideas about Philadelphia. However, unlike me, Queenan mostly sees the city as a source of ridicule, and given his background it is perhaps understandable that he would not be especially balanced or fair in his account. Otherwise, as memoirs go, it has its ups and downs. His adult fondness for things like French literature and classical music and his scorn for the sorts of things enjoyed by the working class are born of his attempt to escape his drunken, abusive father and the poverty of his childhood. Which is fine, but sometimes feels overdone, particularly in his prose. It occasionally feels as though Queenan is trying very hard to demonstrate the impressive vocabulary at his disposal and this makes for some awkward sentences. Some of the particular stories here go on too long in a way that feels strangely like an attempt at self-justification. This lends the memoir a sort of personal intensity but doesn't always make for a captivating read. I enjoyed the book, but I came away feeling that Queenan has not yet escaped his father's long shadow.

[Hoang Shin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really good read. The author is very honest and open about his life experiences. He is able to really tell his story with the depth and richness of his words. The author comes from a very poor background, so when describing his father's love for literature, he also includes his opinion on what books mean to people of different classes.
"But books are without a doubt the wealth of the poor's children. Books are a guiding light out of the underworld, a secret passageway, an escape hatch. To the affluent, books are ornaments. To the poor, books are siege weapons."
Instead of just simply telling the reader about his father's love for books, his additional comment reflects the kind of influence that his father's experience had on his own beliefs toward reading. I think this is a very important element for writers to include when writing a memoir because it helps the reader to connect with the author, and really know how the experiences have created them as who they currently are. It makes a difference between a writer who is simply just logging the details of his life to a writer that is sharing his intimate life story with the reader.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe Queenan, chronicles his life growing up as the son of an alcoholic, abusive father in the slums and housing projects of Philadelphia.

Although it is ostensibly about his relationship with his father, the best chapters deal with the characters he encounters during his education and flirtation with joining the priesthood and the various jobs he takes. Of especial note are the proprietor of a low end clothing store, and the owner of a neighborhood pharmacy.

Being a lover of Classical music, I could relate to his discovery of the art form under the tutelage of his first girlfriend, Susan Orsini. A couple of my favorite quotes are from this chapter: "...people who regard classical music as something akin to oxygen or sunlight are harder and harder to find in a nation that seems forever poised to revert to it's backwoods roots." and "...everything anyone needed to know about pop music he knew by the time he was fifteen, whereas classical music could keep a person occupied for a lifetime."

Intelligent and witty, Mr. Queenan's memoir of transcending poverty through education and sheer will is a wonder.

[Ken Kugler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost want to give this book a higher rating but when I think hard about it, I feel that three stars is what it deserves.
Joe Queenan had an incredibly horrific childhood that everyone in his family tried to escape from an abusive father that enjoyed beating up his children and abusing them mentally as well. He was not a happy drunk nor was he able to hold a job for too long a period. The one thing that Joe has expressed gratitude to his father for is his instilling the love of reading in him. His father was a beaten down man from his earliest memories. The big question Joe seems to want to know is why his father had any children.

Joe Queenan wrote this book, I think, to exorcise his childhood demons. Unfortunately, as intelligent and extremely erudite he is in explaining his tortured childhood; I cannot help thinking that he is trying to prove it to himself as well as to us. He loves big words to the point that I had to use a dictionary numerous times. Yes he is smart but he wants to bang the reader over the head with his intellect.

[Brian Goeselt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of what you want to know about Joe Queenan's memoir of growing up poor, white and Irish in 1960's Philadelphia is presaged in the title's double-entendre. The twin themes of alcoholism and end-of-life reconciliation with the savage impact his father's drinking and physical abuse had on his childhood family occupy much of the book's energy. This strangely, wryly funny reflection on how a father's weakness and poor choices forced a son to turn outward and invent his own life and escape vector from the despair, poverty and drunken beatings that defined his youth grabs you from the very beginning. Queenan's Catholicism is woven throughout as he grapples with sin, redemption, and forgiveness. The framing device of Father-Son is more subtle than you might think, and provokes meditations in the reader on the power of Free Will and self-invention to overcome environmental adversity. The prose is delicious - I found myself wanting to copy down phrases just to internalize their simple clarity.

[Bookmarks Magazine · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his review for the New York Times Book Review, James McManus wrote that Closing Time is likely to intensify whatever opinion readers already hold about Joe Queenan. This seemed true for critics, too, who were sharply divided about the book. Some saw it as unflinchingly honestóa memoir of Irish life in America on par with Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes (which, curiously, Queenan panned). But others saw it as a hopelessly cynical, unforgiving, and indulgent memoiróself-pitying in just the way Queenan says the rest of Americans have come to be. Indeed, on the basis of these divergent reactions, the main reason to read Closing Time might not be to enjoy it but to find out if you are the type of person who can.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book about me, my family and our good buddy alcohol. I'm glad that the synopsis said escape because I could not think of the word that describe Joe's journey in the book and escape is it. Run Joe Run.

I grew up with our good buddy alcohol and could relate to the funny things and none of the bad ones, thankfully. I definitely remember the loud music -- only it was in the middle of the day and it was Irish songs and opera. My dad had a state job, was ready to retire and had over a year of sick days available, so he took them--he called in sick every morning for over a year. Man you don't get benefits like that anymore.

Back to Joe. It was not a pleasant book to read. I know Philly and I know growing up with booze in the house. I forced myself through it. I wish Joe could have had a loving father, but at least he's trying to be one for his children.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd never read Joe Queenan, didn't grow up in Philly, have never been a Roman Catholic and had a father who treated me well. Still, I had a difficult time putting down this book of a dysfynctional family who grew up in the 50's and 60's. Joe's father, a raging alcoholic, his mother manic depressive made his life a teeter toter. I laughed out loud and I cried. I was amazed at the mentors that Joe found in the jobs that he took. The best chapters were his year at the seminary and working at the apothecary. Joe's ability to rise above living in the projects and manage life as a responsible caring adult gives everyone a piece of strength. I'd like to own this book.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Queenan, who traffics in dark humor, casts his satirical eye upon his own tortured childhood. The book starts out as a hate letter to his father, a wretched and violent alcoholic, then devolves into an anti-sermon on the mind numbing horrors of poverty, from the perspective of an Irish kid who managed to escape the slums. The tone lightens up as Queenan grows older, leaves the oppressive atmosphere of his parents' house, and meets a few memorably bizarre characters. But he writes in this long winded prose that comes off as pretentious and almost odious, like you can picture the sneer he must have worn while he was writing...

[Casey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was not familiar with the author but picked it up from the library based on a tag on the cover stating it was a "notable book" according to NYT. I can't say I was crazy about it nor thoroughly engaged by it but it was well written. I felt the author had a kind of new voice as compared to what I generally read. The guy is maybe 50 or so,so it's not a fresh voice. I read for two reasons: One - because I love storytelling Two- because I love the experience of seeing the world through someone else's eyes. This book satisfied both desires.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes, Joe Queenan is an Irishman who describes the challenges of childhood poverty and a reprobate father. Cynical, iconoclastic, impressively learned, mercilessly honest, and utterly fascinating. I couldn't put it down.

[Hannah M · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's grim being poor, but at least you can get some funny stories out of it. Glad I've read it, mostly because I like Joe Queenan's movie reviews. Not for: the faint-hearted, the non-Irish-American, or Those who want a bit of good cheer.