“I come to. I wasn’t, then suddenly I am… aware that something is very wrong.”
And it is. As if arriving fresh from the fever dream of her sensational memoir Drunk Mom Jowita Bydlowska sways toward us with a new tale, a different one, and on the first page she is as drunk as ever, but just as surefooted in her prose. This is not the story of a drunk (a term Bydlowska is quite comfortable with and uses often, my permission to use it here). A story told by a drunk is often rambling, disjointed, and certain to trail off to nowhere before reaching its conclusion. Bydlowska is going to make mistakes in this narrative, but they will not be the missteps of one unfamiliar with words, or how to use them.
“I did what I do because I am who I am.”
Unlike your garden variety corner drunk (though I think Bydlowska might, correctly, argue that all drunks are garden variety in the end) this author’s ability is to weave resilience and a certain shabby courage throughout the heartache. Her honesty in describing the hurt she inflicts on others is equally balanced by her openness about the grace many return to her in kind. If she blames anyone for her troubles it is most certainly herself, though one suspects it is more complicated than that. It is always more complicated than that.
With an advance copy I saved myself the guilt of marking up pages with scribbled notes as I went and by page eleven noticed that I had highlighted and commented on ten of them. So save me some trouble here; just buy the book. Unlike the many loved ones Bydlowska lets down in this story, you will not be disappointed.
Save me some trouble here; just buy the book.
And here’s the thing that makes that certain: she is unflinchingly honest about herself, so if you cast any shade on what that honesty produces on the page consider just how honest you are with yourself alone in the dark of night, never mind in print for all to see.
We are left to respond with either judgment or gratitude. Make your choice.
Bydlowska has always been a challenging writer, one might argue this is the only sort of author worth being. I would. She quotes Barbara Gowdy: “All failure in the world is a failure of empathy and all failure of empathy is a failure of imagination and a failure of attending.” What then are we to do? Courage is the antidote, and Bydlowska is armed. Gowdy accurately describes the world we see in these dark days. Bydlowska, in a memoir drenched in shame and its aftermath, points to another way.
She states that “…addicts invite everyone to their show whether they like it or not.”
They do. I know. But in this case, I like it a lot.
My name is Mike. I have a difficult relationship with alcohol.
This book helped me.
It can help you, whether your troubles are with substances, or with the substance of being alive in this world.
They say time heals all wounds. I don’t think that’s true.
But maybe words can.
Jowita Bydlowska was born in Warsaw, Poland, and moved to Canada as a teenager. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Salon and the Huffington Post. She lives in Toronto, Canada, with her son and his father.
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart (March 10, 2026)
Hardcover 9″ x 6″ | 280 pages
ISBN: 9780771020674
Michael Blouin has been a finalist for the Amazon First Novel Award, the bpNichol Award, and the CBC Literary Award. He has been the recipient of the Lilian I. Found Award, the Diana Brebner Award and the Archibald Lampman Award. His novel Chase and Haven won the ReLit Award for Best Novel, an award he received again for his novel Skin House. He is an Instructor at the University of Toronto, a guest lecturer for Carleton University, and serves as an adjudicator for both the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Two of his novels are now in a permanent archive on the Moon, having landed with NASA/Firefly in 2025.
