The Tender Bar: A Memoir

J. R. Moehringer grew up captivated by a voice. It belonged to his father, A New York City disc jockey who vanished before J.R. spoke his first word. At eight 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 new chorus of voices. Cops and poets, bookies and soldiers, movie stars and stumblebums, all taught J.R., tended him, and provided a kind of fatherhood-by-committee.

Amazon.com Review
"Long before it legally served me, the bar saved me," asserts J.R. Moehringer, and his compelling memoir The Tender Bar is the story of how and why. A Pulitzer-Prize winning writer for the Los Angeles Times, Moehringer grew up fatherless in pub-heavy Manhasset, New York, in a ramshackle house crammed with cousins and ruled by an eccentric, unkind grandfather. Desperate for a paternal figure, he turns first to his father, a DJ whom he can only access via the radio (Moehringer calls him The Voice and pictures him as "talking smoke"). When The Voice suddenly disappears from the airwaves, Moehringer turns to his hairless Uncle Charlie, and subsequently, Uncle Charlie's place of employment--a bar called Dickens that soon takes center stage. While Moehringer may occasionally resort to an overwrought metaphor (the footsteps of his family sound like "storm troopers on stilts"), his writing moves at a quick clip and his tale of a dysfunctional but tightly knit community is warmly told. "While I fear that we're drawn to what abandons us, and to what seems most likely to abandon us, in the end I believe we're defined by what embraces us," Moehringer says, and his story makes us believe it. --Brangien Davis

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

If you are a glass-half-empty type of person, then J.R. Moehringer is the man for you!, 2008-11-07
Mr. Moehringer manages to harp on every mishap in excrutiating detail, no matter how insignificant, while downplaying every positive experience in his life. And the positive experiences he does manage to discuss (such as getting accepted into and graduating from Yale, and getting the opportunity to be a reporter at the New York Times), he turns into sob stories. Or at least he tries. But I wasn't moved. Nor was I convinced that Mr. Moehringer has any type of writing talent. His book was completely unimaginative and uninspirational. And boy does Mr. Moehringer take himself seriously! Anyone must who writes phrases such as "Publicans is the Aladdin's Lamp of Long Island," "make a wish, give the bar a rub - and presto. Aladdin, aka Publicans, provides" or "maybe Publicans was Steve's Great American Novel and he didn't see the point of someone writing another novel about it." The only other thing I can say is that at the end of the novel, I wished Mr. Moehringer had kept his job at Lord & Taylor. End of story.


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Touching personal tale, 2008-10-16
The best treat is a book or movie you fall in love with unexpectedly. This book did that for me.

I had no expectations for this book. I got it out of the library 3 times before reading it and didn't hear of it until 3 years after it's release. Imagine my delight to pick it up (finally) and discover a very personal, touching, charming book. The writing is so vivid and emotional, the scenes play out in your mind as your reading them. I can still picture little JR in front of Grandpa's house waiting for The Voice or carrying Uncle Charlie's girlfriend Pat home after the Mets game. Love the writing, this book is a gem.


1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

The Tender Bar , 2008-10-16
A great book of autobiographical fiction it has a fine narrative flow but certain cracks can be seen in the facade the longer you read.

Don't get me wrong I did like the Tender Bar it does have insightful things to say about growing up that quote about life being a series of peaks and valleys was particularly insightful and true. However many insightful things a book has to say I cannot get past my gut reaction that there are probably parts of the book where Moehringer stretched the truth.

The sheer number of people of the author's acquaintance from the bar who say incredibly insightful things bears no resemblance to any drinking establishment of my experience. Maybe things were different in the 1970s but a bar means to me a place where you can go to drink and argue about sports statistics; I've never walked into a bar and been quizzed on the Magna Carta or been told to list the greatest Russian novelists of the 19th century in alphabetical order.

Overall-I like to give people the benefit of a doubt maybe the author didn't mean for the book to be taken literally and all of the stories are just a series of collections of stories he has heard in bars and around bars over the years.

As for the book itself the author's interaction with his family is much more truthful then the stories involving the bar the interactions with his grandfather are particularly priceless.


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Endearing story, 2008-08-26
The author skillfully tells his story while carefully drawing the reader into his private life. The book is written with honesty and humor and without being overly emotional or dramatic. Although the author tells of his hardships and struggles,he does so in such a way that you see his life as colorful and rich rather than tragic. The story shows that love and nurturing can occur in non-conventional ways and from people you would not normally consider caretakers. This is a story of love and caring and the strength of the human spirit. I highly recommend this book.


0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Good, fun read... especially if you're a "local" at some bar, 2008-08-09
I'm not much for memoirs, but I picked up The Tender Bar on the recommendation of the clerk at a local San Francisco bookstore, and I'm glad I did.

The Tender Bar, by J.R. Moehringer, chronicles the early life of, well... J.R. Moehringer, who grew up in Long Island, New York, alongside his mother, grandparents, several cousins, aunts and his Uncle Charlie, a bartender at the local pub, Publicans. His father, a popular radio disc jockey, was absent much of Moehringer's life, and his absence is the central storyline of The Tender Bar.

With no father figure in his life, Moehringer becomes attached to the bar, Publicans, as well as the many real-life characters that frequent the pub. Each chapter in the book is about one of those characters, and the memoir moves (though slow, at times) chronologically as Moehringer encounters and befriends more and more people.

Though Moehringer details the years he and his mother spend living in Arizona, as well as his collegiate career at Yale, most of the book takes place in and out of the Long Island bar. Due to the fact that most of the events occur in the bar, most of the chapters involve the characters drinking themselves silly, leading to amusing events and/or interesting conversations on work, life, women, the New York Mets and a host of other topics.

For the most part, it's an easy, fun, well-written read that will make you laugh throughout the book. There are some slow parts, and a lot of places in the book where the author is trying to be deep and serious, which can seem forced and unnecessary. But I liked The Tender Bar, and would recommend it as a good "vacation book," especially if you're on some tropical beach (as I was -- in Barbados -- while reading Moehringer's tale).

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