It's a Saint Patrick's Day edition of Books & Booze, where a few of our review contributors share their favorite drunken literature. (I even turned the ole Books & Booze logo into a trippy green 4 leaf clover!) Rather than boozey recipes, today you'll just be reading about books we've loved that love themselves a little liquid courage:
Drew's Boozey Picks:
Ablutions by Patrick deWitt.
A strange little novel about a bartender who wants to be a writer. He starts drinking a lot and ends up falling down a personal (and kinda crazy) rabbit hole. Plus, you can read it in an afternoon before you head out to the bars.
Damascus by Joshua Mohr.
My first dance with Mr. Mohr and a turning point novel for me professionally even if I didn't realize it at the time. Set in a dive bar in the Mission, populated by some of the quirkiest and weirdest characters ever assembled, I still take immense joy in recalling this one. Plus, it gets some still-potent licks in about politics and art.
A strange little novel about a bartender who wants to be a writer. He starts drinking a lot and ends up falling down a personal (and kinda crazy) rabbit hole. Plus, you can read it in an afternoon before you head out to the bars.
My first dance with Mr. Mohr and a turning point novel for me professionally even if I didn't realize it at the time. Set in a dive bar in the Mission, populated by some of the quirkiest and weirdest characters ever assembled, I still take immense joy in recalling this one. Plus, it gets some still-potent licks in about politics and art.
Hollywood by Charles Bukowski.
My first
Bukowski and it made me realize what the fuss is all about. His prose is simple
and fun (also funny) - but boy oh boy do they drink a LOT in this one.
Superhuman amounts. Which is part of what fuels the humor, I think.
Lindsey's Boozey Picks:
From “Gene Diamonds” - “She drank an entire bottle of tequila,/then ate the worm at
the bottom.”
This collection is a look inside the life of a young actress. It’s
smart, trite, fun, thoughtful and maybe a little immature. Basically, it’s
what everyone felt like in their 20s, only with better professional
connections.
From “Returned to Frisco, 1946” - “Served by women, free to get drunk or fight,/Free, if we
chose, to blow in our back pay/On smart girls or trinkets, free to prowl all
night/Down streets giddy with lights,/to sleep all day,”
Snodgrass is said to be the father of confessional poetry, even
though he hated the label. Like most confessional poets there is some mental
illness, some obsession, some drugs, and some drinking. Not always the most
lighthearted read, but every night out drinking has a few downers.
Just read the entire book. Every single page. And then get every
other book that Jennifer L. Knox has written. Reading Knox’s
poetry is kind of like being drunk, without the calories or the hangover.
From “To Delmore Schwartz” - “ We drank and eyed/the chicken-hearted
shadows of the world./Underseas fellows, nobly mad,/we talked away our friends.”
A confessional poet, like Snodgrass, you’ll find a lot of
darkness in Robert’s Lowell’s most famous
collection, Life Studies. “To Delmore Schwartz”
is one of several poems in the double feature book, the second half
being For the Union Dead, that features alcohol, but this is a more
light hearted read. The two poets used to be roommates and Lowell chose to give
readers a glimpse into the life they led together. “The Drinker”
from For the Union Dead is a more sobering look at the effects of
alcohol.
From “Barefoot” - “Do you care for salami?/No. You’d rather not have a
scotch?/No. You don’t really drink. You do/drink me.”
From “Cigarettes and Whisky and Wild, Wild
Women” - “Do I not look in the mirror,/these days,/ and see a drunken
rat avert her eyes?”
Probably the most difficult poet on the list, Anne Sexton wrote
bluntly about mental illness, abuse and sex. She also touched on the highs and
lows of drinking. This is the poet you read the day after a binge for a touch
of perspective.
From “Anxiety” - “I have a drink,/it doesn’t help—far
from it!/I/ feel worse. I can’t remember how/I felt, so perhaps I
feel better.”
If Anne Sexton is the morning after hangover cure, Frank O’Hara
is the party. Often I feel like I’m sitting in a smoky lounge, people
watching, nursing a drink and enjoying live jazz when I read O’Hara’s
poems.
From “The Rowboat” - “Every year he’d sunk/the old clinker-built
rowboat/so it might again float./Every year he’d got drunk/as if
he might once and for all write off/every year he’d sunk”
Paul Muldoon is experimenting with form in Maggot, and at
times the rhyming lines feel like the chant you would here in a dank pub or at
a futbol game.
Lori's Boozey Picks:
Braineater Jones by Stephen Kozeniewski
Ah yes, a good ole crime noir where the zombies must ingest immense amounts of alcohol to remain limber and coherent. It soggens the brain and halts rigor mortis in its tracks while also calming that nagging hunger for flesh. A really well written, brain tickling read.
A Deep and Gorgeous Thirst by Hosho McCreesh
Who doesn't love good poetry, right?! How about poetry so drenched and drowning in booze that you feel all buzzed and blissful as you read it? Hosho's collection is all about getting the drink on. So much so that he even fashioned a Books and Booze post for us.
Under the Poppy by Kathe Koja
Whiskey Heart by Rachel Coyne
The protagonist in this novel was surrounded by people who abused the drink - a father who hid so many bottles around the house that she is still uncovering them years later, a cousin who drank to hide her inability to love. It's all about how deep the drink can cut you.
Termite Parade by Joshua Mohr
*Poetry Drinking Game Bonus Points
Read Wallace Stevens, The Collected Poems, because he got into a drunken
fight with Ernest Hemingway in Key West and broke his hand on Hemingway’s
jaw.
Read Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge by Delmore
Schwartz because he used to hang out and drink with writers like Robert Lowell,
John Barryman and Saul Bellow, and he inspired musician Lou Reed.
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