Drink Smoke Pass Out: An Unlikely Spiritual Journey (Judith Lucy, Viking)

I jumped at the chance to review this, the second of Judith Lucy’s memoirs. I found her first go at the genre (The Lucy Family Alphabet) genuinely moving and of course very funny. I was also interested to see what else she felt she had left to say, given it is only four years since the first memoir was published. Irreverently riffing on the Eat Pray Love phenomena in her introduction, this time Lucy focuses much more on her internal journey through adulthood and the growing realisations that led to the production of her recent ABC series Judith Lucy’s Spiritual Journey. As I noted in my previous review, Lucy’s appeal (at least for my friends and I) is her absolute brave honesty and this is what shines through continuously again in this memoir. Lucy discusses with candour her relationship to booze and her various attempts at long-term relationships and how life’s ups and downs have been made just a little smoother in recent years by her discovery of yoga. The book is not evangelistic in the slightest—rather it is a well written, poignant, moving and naturally humorous story of one forty-something’s attempt to get her life together. It deserves to do well, if only to counteract Eat Pray Love. Indeed it will appeal to some who liked that book—those with a darker sense of humour.

Rachel Wilson is a Melbourne based media academic and former bookseller

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Category: Reviews