Rising young comedian Moshe Kasher is lucky to be alive. He started using drugs when he was just 12. At that point, he had already in psychoanalysis for 8 years. By the time he was 15, he had been in and out of several mental institutions, drifting from therapy to rehab to arrest to…you get the picture. But Kasher in the Rye is not an “eye opener” to the horrors of addiction. It’s a hilarious memoir about the absurdity of it all.
When he was a young boy, Kasher’s mother took him on a vacation to the West Coast. Well it was more like an abduction. Only not officially. She stole them away from their father and they moved to Oakland , California. That’s where the real fun begins, in the war zone of Oakland Public Schools. He was more than just out of control-his mother walked him around on a leash, which he chewed through and ran away.
Those early years read like part Augusten Burroughs, part David Sedaris, with a touch of Jim Carrol…but a lot more Jewish. In fact, Kasher later spends time in a Brooklyn Hasidic community. Then came addiction…
Brutally honest and laugh-out-loud funny, Kasher’s first literary endeavor finds humor in even the most horrifying situations.
