In the Open : Diary of a Homeless Alcoholic

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating and puzzling look at a very strange life!
Review: In this autobiography, Donohue chronicles his peregrinations across the USA while drinking himself silly. He gets a few lucky breaks, some money here and there, a little success, but he drinks it all away. In the end, the book snaps shut abruptly with no conclusion, no climax, no denouement, nothing. Just snaps shut in a very odd way. But then it is just a peek into one man's life, the life of an alcoholic. I definitely had more sympathy for homeless people, even alcoholic homeless people, after reading this book. The potential reader should be warned that it contains a lot of economic theory that Donohue, who actually graduated from college with a business degree, develops. So that stuff is a bit dry and you can safely skip over most of it.

Rating:
Summary: Diary of a Wasted Talent
Review: One reviewer compared this book to George Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London," a gritty look at the lives of transients in France and England in the 1930s. In truth, this book and its author bear more resemblance to Ted Kaczynski and his anti-technology "Manifesto."

The difference is that Orwell never became part of world he described. Exploring the world of the lower classes, he was constantly betrayed by his "lower-upper-middle-class" mannerisms and tastes. Timothy Donohue is all too much a part of the world he describes--namely, the nightmarish world of the late-stage alcoholic.

On the surface, "In the Open" is about a man who freely admits he's trapped in alcohol's clutches but is somehow able to string together a carefully reasoned argument in favor of food stamp reform, typing his manuscript at public libraries whenever he's sober and has the opportunity.

His thesis proceeds with fits and starts, however, as Donohue--who sees himself as an unappreciated visionary--struggles with simple tasks made monumentally difficult by his disease. Obtaining money, finding and keeping a menial job, avoiding the police and bullies, keeping his few possessions intact--all these things demand increasing expenses of time and energy as the author tries unsuccessfully to moderate his drinking.

It's not unusual for an alcoholic to reason that the problem isn't with himself but with the rest of the world. What's unusual is for an alcoholic to go to the lengths to which Donohue has gone to persuade the world that he's right and it's wrong. There may be some sense to Donohue's economic proposals, but then there may be some sense to the musings of a teenager who talks metaphysics while smoking pot. His ideas are nothing if not grandiose--and grandiosity is one of the hallmarks of alcoholism. There's something about Donohue's economic plan that rings false; perhaps it's our awareness that what Donohue's really trying to reconstruct is not the American welfare system but his own shattered Self. If he can prove (to himself at least) that the system's broken, then who can blame him for checking out?

Donohue is at his best when he's describing the landscape and his immediate surroundings, which are by turns enchanting and menacing. There's no denying he has a gift for descriptive prose. Seeing this gift in the service of such a wayward project, however, is somewhat depressing. If he can hit patches of brilliance while drunk and living on the street, where's the limit to what he could do if he got his life turned around? (On the other hand, if Donohue were leading a "normal" life, he might not feel compelled to write at all.)

Oddly, this book is presented with no commentary apart from what's on the dust jacket. There's no Introduction or Forword to put the author and his plight in perspective. There's no Afterword; the narrative ends abruptly, and the reader is left with many questions. Did Donohue ever get his drinking "under control"? Did he ever realize that he wasn't that much different from other alcoholics after all? Did he ever find a spiritual solution to his torment? Is he even still alive?

Because the publisher, the University of Chicago Press, offers such scant explanation, we're also left wondering why the book was published in the first place. Did the editors find merit in Donohue's economic proposals, or is the book intended as an example of the lengths to which a damaged psyche will go to justify itself? The reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions.