Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale

Honeymooners: A Cautionary Tale by Kinder, Chuck. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780452283251.

Chuck Kinders long-awaited and critically acclaimed magnum opus chronicles the misadventures of best friends Ralph Crawford and Jim Stark, two of the most promising writers of their day, and the wives with whom they have spent the best years of their lives raising bad judgment to an art. Kinder captures the late 60s and early 70s in all their splendor and as pointed out in The New York Times Book Review, "It is undoubtedly possible to read this book without knowing that Kinder was a close friend of Raymond Carver. But many of those who pick up this volume about two bad-boy American writers in the making will recognize the general outline of Carvers life." With affection and self-savaging wit, Kinder captures the siren song of the writer in all its squalor and glory. Honeymooners is both an homage to and a debunking of that mythical figure-the alcoholic, womanizing, swaggering male author.