Beachglass

by Wendy Blackburn

Overview

Self-deprecating and bitingly smart, Delia, a recovering addict, forges her own brand of hard won wisdom on her journey in sobriety. When Delia entered treatment for drug and alcohol addiction at seventeen, her life changed forever. She believed she could make it through anything without backsliding—until she receives a phone call from her best friend, Timothy, whom she met in rehab.

Fulfilling a pact they made a decade earlier, she leaves her husband and child in Seattle to care for him as he dies. While in Los Angeles, Delia sorts through her memories—and as her past catches up with her present, she sees she has not merely survived her losses and mistakes, but has been made better because of them.

"A tender, terrifying chronicle of the wages of modern-day sin and the hope of the world to come. . . . A story that rings with grief and triumph."
—Jacquelyn Mitchard, author, The Deep End of the Ocean and Still Summer

"Delicately portraying friendship and loss, temptation and redemption, the turmoil of addiction and the hard-won gifts of recovery, Beachglass is highly recommended for every reader—and required reading for all those in recovery."
— Martha O'Connor, author of The Bitch Posse

"A vibrant, engaging, and utterly honest book...this is a novel which seems to be about recovery but is really about so much more: friendship, chosen families, and the transformative power of human love."
— Nicole Mones, author of Lost in Translation

"Set in a glittering, gritty, late-80s Los Angeles, Beachglass is a beautifully written novel, which, at its heart, is about friendship . . . Though this story made me weep, it helped me see—through my tears—just how messy and miraculous the human condition can be."
– Rebecca Agiewich, author of BreakupBabe

WENDY BLACKBURN has been a chemical dependency counselor since 1992. She lives with her family in a small town outside of Seattle, Washington. This is her first novel. Please visit www.wendyblackburn.com

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312351595
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/12/2007
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

WENDY BLACKBURN has been a chemical dependency counselor since 1992. She lives with her family in a small town outside of Seattle, Washington. Beachglass is her first novel.

Reading Group Guide

When Delia entered treatment for drug and alcohol addiction at age seventeen in Los Angeles, her life changed completely: She immersed herself in AA, began to heal old family wounds, and developed a whole new outlook on herself, on spirituality, on relationships. Out of the rubble, she built a life for herself that any recovering woman would be proud of: a loving husband, a beautiful daughter, her own brand of hard-won wisdom.

Her long-term sobriety is put to the test when she receives a phone call from her gay best friend, Timothy. Fulfilling a pact they made a decade prior, Delia tears herself away from her new life in Seattle and rushes home to Los Angeles, to Timothy's bedside, facing the one thing she fears her sobriety cannot survive—losing him.

Back in LA, Delia begins to encounter familiar people, places, and temptations. As her past catches up with her present, she sees that she has not merely survived her losses and mistakes, but has been made stronger because of them.

Set against a backdrop of West Hollywood in the late 1980s, populated by a drag queen and a stripper, beautiful boys and artists, and told by a narrator with equal doses of self-deprecating humor, old-soul awareness, fallibility, and brutal honesty, Beachglass is a powerful story of recovery, a journey that presents a fresh look into the world of AA and offers a convincing rendering of the constant struggle to go into recovery and stay there—no matter what. In this stunning debut novel, Wendy Blackburn writes of the transformative power of love—for others and oneself—and about friendship, about forgiveness, about redemption.

1.) Talk about the title of the book. In what way are recovering addicts like these pieces of broken-yet-beautiful glass? What other groups of people also fit that description?
2.) "That which does not kill us makes us stronger" is a theme prevalent in this story; what are some examples of this concept?

3.) Which character do you think undergoes the most significant transformation? The least?

4.) Many people view addicts/alcoholics as somewhat doomed, never able to make significant, lasting changes. What did this book do for you in terms of breaking through that belief?

5.) On stigma and stereotype: Delia gets sober at seventeen, stating, "I had been using one chemical or another since I was eleven years old, so the fact that I would bottom out at an age when most people were just getting started was not surprising…" How did this sit with your prior concept of "who addicts are?" What about your preconceived notion of AA: was the AA in the story the way you imagined it really is? How so—or how not? What characters or incidents went against stereotype, and how did this affect your view of 12-step programs, of addiction, of "typical" male/female behavior, of AIDS?

6.) The imagery surrounding the Joan character is rich with symbolism and metaphor. In what ways is she a guardian angel? What visuals support this notion? Talk about the ‘angels' in your life.

7.) Zodiac consistently relapses, lies, and engages in activities reminiscent of everything Delia and Timothy are trying to leave behind, yet they never throw her away. Even when Delia is at the end of her rope with Zodiac's antics, there is a sense of a soft spot, a camaraderie. Why do you think this is? Do you feel Delia should have been more like Timothy toward her (hopeful, trusting), or do you feel Timothy should have been more like Delia (reserved, wary, guarded)? Which one do you relate to more in this way? How would you react to such a person—or how have you reacted, if you've known someone like Zodiac?

8.) Going from Point A (allusions to drunken promiscuity, James, Rafael) to Point B (finding a stable, non-addicted soulmate of a husband in Simon) is not an easy journey for Delia; she struggles to understand how to be in relationships, what her needs are, and how to behave in a healthy manner when it comes to men. Does her relationship with Timothy help—or hinder—this struggle? How?

9.) One could make the statement, "We've all had a James in our lives"—someone with whom a relationship is for whatever reason not feasible, yet the attraction is relentless. Why is he so irresistible to her? Do you feel Delia made the right move with James in the end? Why or why not? What would you have done with someone like that?

10.) Do you think it would be harder for a recovering person to go through a tragedy and stay sober, or would the day-to-day stuff be just as likely to create room for a setback?

11.) Water is a part of several key scenes in this story, in several different forms. Discuss the types of water used (ocean, lake, pool, shower, drinking) in various scenes and the meaning behind each one.

12.) Discuss the concept of surrogate family. Think about how disjointed and mismatched the group of friends in this story would look to others. Is it possible that such seemingly different people would grow so connected? In what other situations do otherwise dissimilar people find friendship and intimacy?

Editorial Reviews

A song by Sheryl Crow might be the backing track for Wendy Blackburn's debut novel, Beachglass, a tender, terrifying chronicle of the wages of modern-day sin and the hope of the world to come. Addiction and recovery are broken lands strewn with the explosives of sentimentality and exaggeration, but Blackburn's sure hand avoids both to tell a story that rings with grief and triumph.” —Jacquelyn Mitchard, author, The Deep End of the Ocean and Still Summer

“With richly textured scenes and characters, Wendy Blackburn's debut novel explores the fragile world of addiction, recovery, and loss. She navigates this tough territory effortlessly and with the clear-headed vision of one who's been there. Delicately portraying friendship and loss, temptation and redemption, the turmoil of addiction and the hard-won gifts of recovery, Beachglass is highly recommended for every reader and required reading for all those in recovery.” —Martha O'Connor, author of The Bitch Posse

“Set in a glittering, gritty, late-80s Los Angeles, Beachglass is a beautifully written novel, which, at its heart, is about friendship and the way in which it both strengthens and tests us. Though this story made me weep, it helped me see—through my tears just how messy and miraculous the human condition can be.” —Rebecca Agiewich, author of BreakupBabe

“Blackburn…obviously knows her material: The AA meetings and late-night coffee and cigarette klatches ring so true that the tobacco smoke practically wafts off the page.” —Kirkus Reviews

“...a deeply affecting, hard-hitting story...Richly imagined and full of vivid characters...” —Seattle Times

“Beachglass takes you into the rooms of AA and rehab with the startling, powerful clarity of one who knows this precarious terrain all too well. A new and promising talent, Wendy Blackburn writes with a refreshing sense of honesty, hope, and renewal.” —James Brown, author of The Los Angeles Diaries

“A vibrant, engaging, and utterly honest book...this is a novel which seems to be about recovery but is really about so much more: friendship, chosen families, and the transformative power of human love.” —Nicole Mones, author of Lost in Translation

“Wendy Blackburn's Beachglass paints an insightful portrait of not only a recovering addict, but of those who love her parents, spouse, child, and friends. Addicts often claim, "It's my life." But truly, their addiction touches a wide circle of people around them, as Beachglass so poignantly illustrates. Kudos to Blackburn for a fine debut novel.” —Ellen Hopkins, author of Crank

“One of the book's strengths is the characters' emotions and their collective let-the-truth-come-out nature. You will finish the novel with a sense of how truth, past dependency and all, can lighten the heart and mind rather than trouble it.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

“A richly poignant first novel.” —Booklist

“Beachglass is not just for those interested in the subject of recovery from addiction, it's for everyone who loves a powerful story, colorful characters, a believably solid plot, and absolutely delicious writing. It's one of the most poignant portrayals of recovery that I have ever read.” —Neil Scott, Producer and host of talk radio show Recovery Coast to Coast

From the Publisher

For her debut novel, Blackburn, a chemical dependency counselor in Seattle, presents a kaleidoscopic look at AA denizens, clean and not, from the perspective of a Seattle chemical dependency counselor who is a recovering addict. Delia, 10 years clean and sober, leaves her husband, Simon, and toddler, Clara, to return to her childhood home in West Hollywood at the behest of Timothy, with whom she went through AA and who is dying of AIDS. What unfolds is Delia's retrospective account of her addiction and her arduous and still-constant struggle to find a way to live clean. The book is populated with a cast of characters flawed in almost every conceivable way, including Delia's disturbed parents; her late sponsor, Joan; and others from AA days, some of whom are still a mess. Delia's remembrances of meetings and other charged parts of her past make up the bulk of the book, and are raw and painful. With Delia's recovery and Timothy's deaths foregone conclusions, there's not much to the plot, and Delia's first person is as generic as it is colloquial, but her courage and her past ravagement are palpable. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

A debut novel about AA, romance and recovery, set in West Hollywood. Delia is a recovering alcoholic with ten years of sobriety, a loving husband, a two-year-old daughter and a happy home life in Seattle. Then she gets the call she has been dreading for a decade. Timothy, her beloved gay friend from AA, is dying. When he was first diagnosed with HIV, Delia promised she would be by his side at the end. And so, with the loving encouragement of her "normie" (AA term for a non-addict) husband, Delia travels back to West Hollywood, the site of her childhood, her teenage appetite for booze, crack, 'ludes and other pharmaceuticals, and the flameout that landed her in rehab. It was there she met Timothy, and where the two supported each other until both were clean. Delia's return to California triggers memories of her struggles to stay sober, her parents' anger at all the trouble she caused and her unresolved feelings about the death of her sponsor, Joan, her first marriage and her attraction to James, the man who always tempted Delia to walk on the wild side. Told mostly in flashbacks, with the focus on Delia (though it is Timothy who is dying), this novel presents an ensemble cast of addict-stereotypes: Zodiac, the black crack-whore who keeps falling off the wagon; Joan, the older, spiritually certain sponsor who wears gauzy white clothes; Delia's dad, the high-powered narcissist and functioning alcoholic; Delia's mom, the classic enabler; Rafael, the dry drunk in shut-down mode; and Delia herself, who thrives in her sobriety and becomes a chemical-dependency counselor. Blackburn, also a chemical-dependency counselor, obviously knows her material: The AA meetings and late-night coffee andcigarette klatches ring so true that the tobacco smoke practically wafts off the page. But the story never moves beyond the emotional level of case histories. And it's inevitable that good intentions will prevail. A too-familiar 12-step two-step.

Kirkus Reviews