All:
Detective heroes who are recovering alcoholics (and members of
AA): Lawrence Block has the main character Matt Scudder and James Lee Burke has
Dave Robicheaux. Both are prolific authors. Block’s When the Sacred
Gin Mill Closes sets the stage for Matt Scudder’s joining AA and
getting sober. But before the end of the book he really hammers ‘em back.
(I have a paper on these two characters on my UWSP Web
page.)
Univ. of Wisconsin –Stevens Point
http://www.uwsp.edu/comm/faculty/rdubiel/index.shtm
Rich Dubiel
From: Alcohol and Drugs
Historhttp://www.uwsp.edu/comm/faculty/rdubiel/index.shtmy Society
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dan Malleck
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 8:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Under the Literary Influence
Being terribly neurotic, I try to steer clear of blatantly
alcohol and drug related literature for my personal reading.
Nevertheless, there is a section of Ann-Marie Macdonald's Fall on your knees
(1997) that is particularly memorable for me. The book is an epic story
about a poor family in Nova Scotia, beginning in the early part of the 20th
century. For one section, a young girl in the family becomes an
entertainer at a backwoods blind pig during prohibition. Macdonald's
ability to describe what seemed to me to be a likely much more realistic
impression of the rough backwoods illegal drinking space altered my perception
of illegal drinking during prohibition. Later the story moves to Harlem
during the 20s and 30s, but the blind pig is my favourite bit.
She's a brilliant writer in any case, but this is especially evocative for
those of us who are preoccupied, one way or another (or in many ways), with
alcohol and drugs.
Dan Malleck
At 05:09 PM 2/21/2009, Bradley Kadel wrote:
Given our round table last
month on writers and alcohol, I thought the following from Brian McDonald might be of particular interest. Be sure to
look at the comments, for you'll find many more suggestions of titles wherein
alcohol plays a prominent role, as the author's trusty muse or the subject for
exploration through characters and places.
http://proof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/under-the-literary-influence/?emc=eta1http://proof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/under-the-literary-influence/?emc=eta1
Would it be too much to ask list members for
their own favorite authors and titles?
For my part, I don't think anyone in the
twentieth century described gritty barroom intoxication better than James
Farrell, especially in the last volume of his Studs Lonnigan trilogy. Of course
Farrell's writing is quite dark, and certainly the tone of most writers
describing drunkenness shifts considerably by the early 1960s. Ideas?
Brad Kadel
Fayetteville State University
*************************************************
A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention
to the world. That means trying to understand, take in, connect with, what
wickedness human beings are capable of; and not be corrupted - made cynical,
superficial - by this understanding.
Literature can tell us what the world is like.
Literature can give us standards and pass on
deep knowledge, incarnated in language, in narrative.
Literature can train, and exercise, our ability
to weep for those who are not us or ours.
From Susan Sontag's acceptance speech on the occasion of being awarded the
Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels,
the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.
Dan Malleck, PhD
Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Editor-in-chief, Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary
Journal
http://historyofalcoholanddrugs.typepad.com
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