Author: J. R. Moehringer
- Non-Fiction
- Duomo Ediciones
- ISBN: 9788416261017
- Release Date: 01-04-2022
Synopsis
J. R. Moehringer grew up captivated by a voice. It was the voice of his father, a New York City disc jockey who vanished before J. R. spoke his first word. Sitting on the stoop, pressing an ear to the radio, J. R. would strain to hear in that plummy baritone the secrets of masculinity and identity. Though J. R.'s mother was his world, his rock, he craved something more, something faintly and hauntingly audible only in The Voice. At 8 years old, suddenly unable to find The Voice on the radio, J. R. turned in desperation to the bar on the corner, where he found a rousing chorus of new voices. The alphas along the bar - including J. R.'s uncle Charlie, a Humphrey Bogart look-alike; Colt, a Yogi Bear sound-alike; and Joey D, a softhearted brawler - took J. R. to the beach, to ballgames, and, ultimately, into their circle.
They taught J. R., tended him, and provided a kind of fathering by committee. Torn between the stirring example of his mother and the lurid romance of the bar, J. R. tried to forge a self somewhere in the center. But when it was time for J. R. to leave home, the bar became an increasingly seductive sanctuary, a place to return and regroup during his picaresque journeys. Time and again the bar offered shelter from failure, rejection, heartbreak - and, eventually, reality.
J.R. creció con su madre, pues su padre los abandonó cuando J.R. no había pronunciado su primera palabra. El, sin embargo, sabe quién es su padre: un DJ de Nueva York que tiene un programa de radio y cuya voz J.R. escucha con la oreja pegada al aparato. Hasta que un día la voz desaparece del aire y J.R. se queda sin nadie a quien escuchar. Encontrará refugio en el amor de su madre y en el Dickens, el bar de la esquina, un sitio donde poetas, policías, apostadores, soldados, boxeadores y estrellas de cine tienen una historia que contar.
Allí, entre todas esas voces que lo cautivan como en un sueño, J.R. podrá darle voz a su propio destino y podrá forjarse, también, una identidad. Conmovedor y emocionante, firmado por un premio Pulitzer, El bar de las grandes esperanzas es un libro hermoso que puede leerse como una novela de aprendizaje o como una historia apasionadamente sincera y real.
