A Memoir
by Jamie Brickhouse
Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2015
288 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
"A blisteringly funny, wrenching account of wrestling way too close to - and later loose from - booze, sex and drugs and his adorable, infuriating mother. Bravo!" —Mary Karr, New York Times bestselling author of The Liars' Club
"Whoever said you can't get sober for someone else never met my mother, Mama Jean. When I came to in a Manhattan emergency room after an overdose to the news that she was on her way from Texas, I panicked. She was the last person I wanted to see on that dark September morning, but the person I needed the most."
So begins this astonishing memoir - by turns both darkly comic and deeply poignant - about this native Texan's long struggle with alcohol, his complicated relationship with Mama Jean, and his sexuality. From the age of five all Brickhouse wanted was to be at a party with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other and all Mama Jean wanted was to keep him at that age, her Jamie doll forever. A Texan Elizabeth Taylor with the split personality of Auntie Mame and Mama Rose, always camera-ready and flamboyantly outspoken, Mama Jean haunted him his whole life, no matter how far away he went or how deep in booze he swam.
Brickhouse's journey takes him from Texas to a high-profile career in book publishing amid New York's glamorous drinking life to his near-fatal descent into alcoholism. After Mama Jean ushers him into rehab and he ultimately begins to dig out of the hole he'd found himself in, he almost misses his chance to prove that he loves her as much as she loves him. Bitingly funny, raw, and insightful, Dangerous When Wet is the unforgettable story of a unique relationship between a son and his mother.
About the Author
Jamie Brickhouse has been published in The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, Lambda Literary Review, The Fix, Addiction/Recovery eBulletin, and the Latin American travel magazine Travesía. He is also a guest blogger for the Huffington Post. Brickhouse spent over two decades in the publishing industry, most recently at two major houses as head of their publicity and lecture divisions. He has also performed stand-up comedy and recorded voice-overs for the legendary cartoon TV show, Beavis and Butthead. A native of Beaumont, Texas, Brickhouse lives in Manhattan with his partner, Michael. Visit him at jamiebrickhouse.com
"Unabashedly campy but always candid." - Kirkus
"Jamie Brickhouse has written a blisteringly funny, wrenching account of wrestling way too close to - and later loose from - booze, sex and drugs and his adorable, infuriating mother….Bravo - the first of many from Brickhouse." - Mary Karr, New York Times bestselling author of The Liars' Club"
"... Dangerous When Wet is far more than a witty chronicle of gin-soaked debauchery. It is, more importantly, a poignant, hilarious, and sharply observed story of a gay man's exchange of self-destruction and self-loathing for wisdom and a mature understanding of love. Move over, Augusten Burroughs. You've got company." - Wally Lamb, New York Times bestselling author of We Are Water
"Under Mama Jean's tutelage, Jamie also came to appreciate the joys, and dangers, of a champagne cocktail. In exploring family uproar, the Holly Golightly allure of Manhattan, and the free fall of alcoholism, Jamie creates a literary cocktail all his own: witty, blisteringly honest and wickedly intoxicating." - Paul Rudnick, playwright, author, and New Yorker humorist
"Brickhouse's memoir is as revealing as it is riotous ... a dark journey studded with gems of hilarity." - Josh Kilmer-Purcell, co-star of The Fabulous Beekman Boys, and author of I Am Not Myself These Days
"Jamie Brickhouse has seen the darkness, and emerged a happier, stronger person. His book is sensitive and thoughtful, tinged with hilarity and heartbreak, and as bubbly as a champagne flute of Asti Spumante. Drink it." —Henry Alford, Humorist, author of Would It Kill You to Stop Doing That?, and columnist for The New York Times
"Jamie Brickhouse serves up a riotous, rollicking memoir that, ultimately, is as sweet as it is outrageous." - Neil White, author of In the Sanctuary of Outcasts
"Jamie Brickhouse's flame-red hair may have faded, but his no-holds-barred account of his fairy-tale life gone bad sets the pages of Dangerous When Wet on fire." - Eric Marcus, author of Why Suicide?
This information about Dangerous When Wet was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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