Beachglass: A Novel

By Wendy Blackburn

Book Overview

When Delia entered treatment for drug and alcohol addiction at age seventeen, 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. But 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 a barrage of memories that makes her stop and sort through her past, looking for the courage she knows she needs now more than ever. 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. This understanding comes to her in full as she holds a piece of beachglass in her hand and realizes that it is its scuffs and scrapes that give it its quiet splendor, its imperfections that give it its beauty and individuality, and that it is from being tossed and tumbled that it no longer shatters--and she knows the same goes for her too. 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 gritty and uplifting 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. "

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312351585
• ISBN13: 9780312351588
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.2" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Spellbound

I could not put this book down. Delia tells her story in the present and in flashbacks. In the current time, Delia is holding the hand of her best friend while he dies. Kleenex alert!! Delia and Timothy walk this path together in an agony of loss and triumph. We meet Delia some 13 years before as a physically and emotionally bankrupt 17 year old. She comes to rehab as an 89 pound, half dead druggie/alcoholic. Faced with the choice to live or die, Delia makes the courageous leap to grab life. In the rehab Delia meets a delightfully quirky and human cast of characters who will become her friends and guides as she learns how to live a sober life. This book is gritty and sweaty and unflinchingly honest about what it is like to be in recovery. It's a story about how Delia learns to live and to embrace all the scars and challenges that polish and grow her into being a beautiful and unique piece of art, like Beachglass.

Beach Glass is an awesome book!

I have long been fascinated by issues related to addiction and alcoholism and have read several books (fiction and non-fiction) on this subect; Beach Glass is definitely one of the best I've read. The indepth portrayal of people in the throes of and recovering from various addictions is amazing. It is great the way the author can realistically create characters from all different backgrounds (gay, straight, male, female). And I loved the way she wove the details of the locations (sounds, sights, etc) into the story. I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone, regardless of whether you are in the addictions counseling field or not.

This year's 'must read' book at the Twelve Step Shop.

When a customer asks me 'What book would you recommend?', I ask them at least 20 questions before I even hazard a guess. Then I suggest a book that I feel most relates to their particular situation. Gleefully, Beachglass is a book I can recommend with reckless abandon to anyone who walks into my store. ANYONE who reads this capitaving tale will be entertained and indeed educated about the recovery side of the deadly diseases of alcoholism and addiction. I loved this book!

Beachglass: Sharing Experience, Strength and Hope

Wendy Blackburn has made a five-star debut with Beachglass, a story of life, love, romance, and recovery. Through the eyes and heart of Delia, a recovering addict, she takes the reader on a remarkable journey into the depths of addiction soaring to the heights of recovery. From the past to the present, it is a poetic tapestry of words and wonder. Wendy's writing is simply delightful, colorful, concise, and captivating. She describes seemingly mundane details in hypersensitive three-dimension. Every description is a painting in soft hues. Delia, a recovering addict, wife, and mother, leaves her family to fly to Los Angeles to fulfill a promise made long ago to a friend she met in treatment who is living with AIDS, a promise to be there when the end comes. In the process she reflects on sobriety and serenity, anger and acceptance, grief and love. She experiences the powerful flames of temptation for a former lover that still bubbles and burns. In a few short weeks with her dying friend, who faces death with dignity, she stands tall in the sunlight of her sobriety. During her time with Timothy, Delia relives a 12 year journey through life, death, and recovery, one page at a time. The unlikely cast of characters who emerge from the depths of addiction into the sunlight of recovery are strikingly real. Meet Delia, Timothy, Simon, Clara, James, Rafael, Joan, Hap, Matt, and the predictably unpredictable Zodiac. They go their separate ways after treatment, only to be reunited by Timothy's death, which turns into a celebration of sobriety and a tribute to treatment and recovery. It's a novel about recovery, but it's so much more. It's a novel about AIDS, but it's so much more. It's about death, but more about life. Beachglass is a story of meeting life on life's terms. It's about love long lost, but ever remembered, and truly honored simply for what it was and what it will always be. It is about temptation and truth, as a young recovering addict deals with her demons past and present with compassionate guidance from her ever-accepting sponsor. Ms. Blackburn gives the reader an intimate look inside the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, behind the walls of treatment, and into recovery, the bright side of addiction, where miracles happen. And Beachglass is filled with miracles. It's one of the most poignant portrayals of recovery that I have ever read, and a remarkable vehicle for those who seek to know more about addiction. It's a sharing of experience, strength and hope, which resounds with acceptance, strength and wisdom overflowing with raw pain and unconditional love, and with rage and compassion, as memories and dreams collide. It's written with a tapestry of magical colors that blend into the fabric of life and love, of growth and perseverance, of not just surviving, but thriving. It's all about letting go and gathering in, it's about breathing and not breathing. For those who wonder what happens in a treatment center and the months and years

Beachglass.....A True Treasure!

Wendy Blackburn's novel introduces the reader to a group of engaging and diverse characters through whom one is able to explore what it means to be human. The story is compelling, the characters are rich, the imagery is intense. Beachglass is a novel that reminds the reader of the importance of looking beyond the surface...as true beauty is often buried deep beneath many protective layers.