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Description edit
After nearly twenty years of chasing oblivion, a fight in a bar reveals to a newly sober Mishka Shubaly that he is able to run long distances. Despite his best attempts to dodge enlightenment and personal growth, the irreverent young drunk and drug abuser learns to tame his self-destructive... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Summary edit
After nearly twenty years of chasing oblivion, a fight in a bar reveals to a newly sober Mishka Shubaly that he is able to run long distances. Despite his best attempts to dodge enlightenment and personal growth, the irreverent young drunk and drug abuser learns to tame his self-destructive... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
People edit
- Mishka Shubaly: The author, a recovering alcoholic who discovers he can and enjoys running long distances.
- Luis: This is the main characters running mate. He is the complete opposite of Mishka, but he loves and challenges him all the same.
Quotes edit
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“But your old life doesn't just fall away from you like a snake shedding its skin. You carry it with you everywhere you go.”
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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acedia is sorrow so complete that the flesh prevails completely over the spirit. You don’t just turn your back on the world, you turn your back on God. You don’t care, and you don’t care that you don’t care.
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Better my knees end early from overuse than my life end early from underuse.
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It’s much easier to accede to the grim fact of an early death than it is to deal with the long, fumbling open question of what to do with your life.
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What’s the secret to my miraculous recovery, you might ask? Well, there is no secret because there has been no miracle. I got better the way everyone gets better: by trial and error and error and error, by fumbling around and making mistakes but not giving up and working incredibly hard at it every day and eventually, through a painful and laborious process of eliminating every wrong turn, finding my way. For me, the hardest part was learning how to care about my life again.
Highlighted by 85 Kindle customers -
“The tragedy is not that you’re gonna die this way,” my mother had said to me once, “it’s that you live this way.”
Highlighted by 82 Kindle customers -
Never make the mistake of thinking that alcoholics are weak, because it took an incredible amount of internal strength and conviction in order for me to keep drinking despite the growing mountain of evidence against it.
Highlighted by 73 Kindle customers -
Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a whole lot worse.
Highlighted by 51 Kindle customers
Setting & Locations edit
- Brooklyn, New York: Where the main character lives.
Organizations edit
- University of Colorado: A party school known for athletics, criminal misbehavior of fraternities & egregious wealth. The author attended this school.
First Sentence edit
I was behind the bar making change for Eddie the bartender when we heard the unmistakeable sound of Something Going Wrong In A Bar - chairs scraping, the clattering sound of something falling over, grunts of exertion, the heavy, meaty sound of blows, girls squawking.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Mishka Shubaly (Author)
Subjects edit
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