The Tender Bar

J. R. Moehringer is the author of The Tender Bar, a memoir of his childhood and young adulthood, which he narrates chronologically in the first person. Born in 1964 in New York City, Moehringer was raised by his single mother in Manhasset, New York, where they lived with his grandparents and other extended family. Now an award-winning journalist, Moehringer released The Tender Bar in 2005 to much critical acclaim.

From the memoir, readers learn that Moehringer was an anxious and intelligent child who had a strong relationship with his mother. He also fostered close ties with certain supportive family members, namely his grandmother and his cousin McGraw. His memoir is a love story to the bar Publicans and its patrons, many of whom helped to raise him. It also contains many other humorous and candid accounts of his childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.

Despite his rather extraordinary youth, Moehringer’s knack for representing his inner monologue and penchant for self-deprecation enliven his work and humanize him as a narrator. The memoir’s deep interiority reveals an unusually observant personality; Moehringer, as a child, was hyperaware of complex (and often painful) family dynamics, psychological implications, and unspoken sentiments.