“Michael Deagler is the real deal. . . .This is a truly intelligent work from a clearly intelligent writer.”
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR’S CHOICE
Don’t worry about what Dennis Monk did when he was drinking. He’s sober now, ready to rejoin the world of leases and paychecks, reciprocal friendships and healthy romances—if only the world would agree to take him back. When his working-stiff parents kick him out of their suburban home, mere months into his frangible sobriety, the 26-year-old spends his first dry summer couch surfing through South Philadelphia, struggling to find a place for himself in the throng of adulthood.
Monk’s haphazard pilgrimage leads him through a city in flux: growing, gentrifying, haunted by its history and its unrealized potential. Everyone he knew from college seems to be doing better than him—and most of them aren’t even doing that well. His run-ins with former classmates, estranged drinking buddies, and prospective lovers challenge his version of events past and present, revealing that recovery is not the happy ending he’d expected, only a fraught next chapter.
Like a sober, millennial Jesus’ Son, Michael Deagler’s debut novel is the poignant confession of a recovering addict adrift in the fragmenting landscape of America’s middle class. Shot through with humor, hubris, and hard-earned insight, Early Sobrieties charts the limbos that exist between our better and worst selves, offering a portrait of a stifled generation collectively slouching towards grace.
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“EARLY SOBRIETIES builds into a moving, comic meditation on the impossibility of imposing narrative structure on our lives . . . a wise and piercing book . . .”
“EARLY SOBRIETIES marks the arrival of a writer of considerable gifts: Michael Deagler has a Dickensian way with names . . . his dialogue is as crisp as a virgin mojito and his prose has the buoyant energy of a hangover-free Saturday morning.”
“Illuminating and moving—Deagler’s debut pulls in a reader with such an inviting clarity. There’s something about the honesty in this voice that creates a lot of room for the reader to connect, imagine, and feel.”
“A luminous and observant debut about all the strangeness of returning to the places that formed you. The prose is spectacular.”
“Emotionally raw, often jaded, but still full of wonder, EARLY SOBRIETIES is an incredibly funny and tender story. Michael Deagler does a fantastic job of bringing into relief the absurdities of being a young adult and trying to find your place in a changing world.”
“Really dug this novel. Funy, wry, honest, unapologetic, and soulful.”
“Sharp and self-aware, with deep insight packed into no-fuss prose: a quarter-life-crisis tale for the ages.”
“Grimly funny.”
“EARLY SOBRIETIES is one of the strongest debuts I have read in years, a book as wise as it is compelling.”
“A really skillful piece of writing . . . [Deagler] pulls off the very difficult trick of transforming familiar autobiographical experience into something that’s fresh and surprising. ”
“EARLY SOBRIETIES is a miracle, a debut of startling beauty, grit, and grace. Cutting into the glow of its lyricism and humor, the awesome glare of undeceived vision illuminates every page.”
“Funny, insightful, and, above all, well-written, EARLY SOBRIETIES is a pleasure to read. Deagler manages to tell the story of his bewildered and rudderless protagonist in a way that is not rudderless at all, but rather precise and meaningful.”
“This is a funny, sad but — first of all — incredibly soulful novel. It offers an unflinching account of the life which has to be lived in the aftermath of a change of heart. Here is a narrator who is clear-eyed and yet sun-dazzled; born again but as an actual newborn. It will literally make you laugh and it will literally make you cry.”
“Deagler captures the Philly I know and remember: a city with a big heart and two clenched fists.”
“A young man surfaces from the depths of alcoholism in Deagler’s pitch-perfect debut novel . . . a wizened and wry outlook on the rapidly transforming city . . . This is a standout.”
“The witty, fiercely intelligent story of a young alcoholic in the fragile early days of sobriety . . . Wry, sharp, charming, resistant to neat closures and easy turns — a debut of enormous promise.”
“Newly sober, screwed-up and sad — this portrait of a generation is superb.”
“Michael Deagler’s debut novel EARLY SOBRIETIES arrives with a fully formed literary voice . . .”
“Deagler’s debut novel skillfully examines the pitfalls and triumphs of sobriety, the challenges of having no clear direction in early adulthood, and the often winding paths we take toward the future.”
“[Monk] has a recovering addict’s sense of the near-religious profundity of the day-to-day, the wry humor of a sober man among drunks, and a newly clear-eyed view of familiar people and places (or nearly familiar: the blackouts of his drinking days, their unknowability, haunt Monk’s newfound sober ones).”
“Deagler’s debut shines as a raw and captivating introspective journey. He blends humor, insight, and sparkling prose to explore the complexities of sobriety and self-discovery.”