cover image What Did I Do Last Night? A Drunkard's Tale

What Did I Do Last Night? A Drunkard's Tale

Tom Sykes, . . Rodale, $22.95 (213pp) ISBN 978-1-59486-463-6

English journalist Sykes shares a raw, dizzying testimony of his steep, precipitous dive into alcoholism over the course of his young adulthood. With the wounding desertion of his father from their family of six children when Sykes was 14, the boy soon found comfort with his drinking buddies at boarding school in Eton, where they could drink copiously at age 16. Young Tom became a heavy pot smoker and user of Ecstasy and cocaine, eventually fumbling his way into journalism at the Evening Standard , where he fit in winningly among older journalists and prodigious drinkers. His drunken stunts soon grew old at the Standard and at his next gig, GQ , and Sykes gravitated toward New York, where his more enterprising sisters, twins Plum and Lucy, and Alice, enjoyed high-end magazine jobs. Writing features at the New York Post , which segued into a regular bar column, the lucky golden boy landed a lifestyle of the most obsequious entitlement, wooed by every establishment in town—with checks waived and outrageous behavior overlooked for a mere mention on Page Six. Throughout, Sykes's voice is candid and the details gritty. (Oct.)