What Did I Do Last Night?

by Sykes, Tom

• ISBN13: 9781594867330
• ISBN10: 159486733X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2007-10-30
• Publisher: Modern Times

Summary

"Sykes's amusing and depressing ancedotes about his 'research,' deepened by the occasional bout of introspection, make this addition to the recovery memoir genre distinctive." --People The former New York Post nightlife reporter for "Page Six" serves up his own dark secrets in this funny, biting, candid memoir of his long relationship with booze and his first intrepid steps toward recovery. Tom Sykes always liked to drink. When he was a teenager he drank to escape the boredom of his uptight British boarding school, Eton, and his rapidly disintegrating family. Sykes also chronicles his experiences in the workforce as a substance-abusing young editor at GQ magazine in London, and describes what it was like, after the Post beckoned him to New York, for a reporter with a fondness for the bottle to cover the glamorous social scene in a city that never sleeps. As the excesses of the party scene that he documents threaten to become his downfall, he faces the ultimate question: Can he summon the strength to pick himself off the barroom floor and save his own life?"Fast, funny and at times stupefyingly honest"--British GQ"A compulsive, salutary and entertaining story of social intoxication"--British Glamour"Unputdownable--as sad as it is funny. I admit to being Tom's sister, but it's still a brilliantly written book." --Plum Sykes, author of The Debutante Divorcee and Bergdorf Blondes"Take one bright lad, mix with two parts drink and tabloid journalism and you get a memoir that reads like a three-day bender, full of high-spirited humor and low-point misadventure. I enjoyed every page." --Rick Marin, author of Cad: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor"A thrilling ride through the drug-and alcohol-soaked nightlife of London and New York. Tom Sykes's writing is funny, smart, and a dead-on account of addiction. What's more, unlike most confessional memoirs, it's all true."--Toby Young, author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Author Biography

TOM SYKES is a frequent contributor to Men's Health, Best Life, and British GQ. He is married with one son.

Table of Contents

"A thrilling ride through the drug- and alcohol-soaked nightlife of London and New York." -Toby Young, author of How to Lose Friends an Alienate People

 

"This memoir, subtitled, "A Drunkard's Tale," is actually more than that - the author Tom Sykes abused himself with huge quantities of cannabis and cocaine, as well as ecstasy, magic mushrooms and LSD. It's the story of a young man seeking, and finding, oblivion. It reads fast, like a headlong tumble; I kept thinking of someone falling down an enless flight of stairs...I really liked this book. I liked the drinking scenes, and I liked the snowballing sense of shame and horror. But I think the best thing of all is the way it shows how addiction can be the result of hiding from emotions; Sykes grew up feeling unable to admit he was unhappy - to his father, and then, I suspect, to himself. Oblivion beckoned. He tells it well." -William Leith, author of The Hungry Years, in the London Evening Standard

 

"Tom Sykes was your typical teenage rebel. Despite a priveleged background and private education, his parent's divorce during his adolescence had him seek solace in rebellion - first at Eton, then at Edinburgh University, where his drinking soon spiralled out of control. After that he embarked on a career in journalism, where he was sacked from a series of jobs until he moved to New York to become nightclub and gossip columnist for the New York Post - not ideal for someone whose daily diet of neat alcohol seems destined to lead to self-destruction. This is no holier-than-thou memoir, however, as Tom admits to having had a lot of fun along the way. It's a compulsive, slutary and entertaining true story of social intoxication." -British Glamour

 

"A darkly comic tale of addiction." -The Mail on Sunday

 

"There is no doubt that What Did I Do Last Night? is car-crash literature. It is a headlong story of self-destruction and the inevitability of Tom's drinking career is writ large from the opening page. But his honesty in the telling of it, not to mention the treament of the brutal truths of addiction and recovery, make this required reading for anyone who has ever flirted around the edges of that great black hole." -The Daily Express