- Paperback: 169 pages
- Publisher: Picador USA; Reprint edition (Aug 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312422326
- ISBN-13: 978-0312422325
- Product Dimensions: 18.2 x 12.1 x 1.2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,353,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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28 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Not All Editions Include Game & Detective Novel Extras
25 Aug 2003
Format:Paperback
Hand to Mouth, by itself, is a somewhat raw but not at all insensitive memoir of life before publishing. I found it engrossing at times.
Auster recounts his youthful rejection of middle class consumerism, his odd and fascinating encounters with all kinds of characters and life situations, his stay in Paris, his first marriage, his ...well... failures to make it big as a writer. His admirable sense of integrity (no jobs except ones literary) unfortunately kept the author wallowing in translation work to put food on the table, and the sense of pain, desperation and even a sort of starvation are palpable. Agonizingly, but rather fittingly, he tells only of his years BEFORE success. This is no rags to fame & riches story.
Hand to Mouth is basically a reality check. Of some value to anyone who wants to get published, but the only thing that keeps this from being totally depressing is our knowledge of Auster's eventual literary success.
Lovely sections about the wacky people he met on ships and on streets reveal inspiration for characters he brings alive in his humanistic fiction.
If you do buy an edition (check out the number of pages before you order) which contains "Action Baseball" and "Squeeze Play", you are in for a treat. The former is a complete card game and the latter is a detective novel. Squeeze Play was written under a pseudonym and features a Jewish private eye with a law degree from Columbia who has a taste for fine wine and music. Mickey Spillane gets urban Semitic spit & polish in this totally enjoyable bonus read.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
For the true auster fan only
23 Mar 2000
Format:Paperback
Like some obscure import record of your favourite band or musician, Hand To Mouth is really only going to appeal to the most die-hard fan. Auster's honest though somewhat uninteresting chronicle of his early failures may appeal to struggling 20-something wannabe writers, but generally the appeal is limited. One can't help but feel Auster should of held onto this material until later in his life - a complete autobiography in his later years would be more valuable.
The early previously unpublished works included in the book are a must for fans and Auster must be commended for being so brave as to include them here. Perhaps most entertaining is the publication of his 'action baseball' game.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Interesting autobiography, flat prose
11 Dec 1999
Format:Hardcover
This is a book for hardcore Auster fans only, I think. It has interesting tidbits that illuminate his prose and the 'chronicle of early failure' is indeed harrowing and interesting. yet, unlike most of Auster's prose, this account never trandescends itself; that is, it doesn't achieve the luminescence of the prose that Auster is capable of. There was a LOT of filler near the end of the book too (did we really need to see the Action Baseball game?) A far better account of the starving artist routine is Samuel Delany's _The Motion of Light in Water_
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