The Messy Reality About Famous Alcoholic Writers

THE OLD MAN AND THE PEE –

Feb. 4, 2023 – In “The Thirsty Muse: Alcohol and the American Writer,” Tom Dardis noted that a closer look at the long list of famously drunken writers “reveals that four were suicides (Jack London, Hart Crane, Hemingway and John Berryman), while nearly all the rest burned themselves out at surprisingly early stages of their careers.

“A few preserved legendary silences that persisted for decades (Djuna Barnes and Dashiell Hammitt), but virtually all the rest continued to write, producing increasingly feeble works.”

Dardis said it was “clear that alcoholism has played an immense part in this sad and premature loss of creativity.”

In her book “The Trip to Echo Springs: On Writers and Drinking,” Olivia Laing includes an excerpt from John Cheever’s diaries to illustrate the cost of his alcoholism:

“In the morning, I am deeply depressed, my insides barely function, my kidney is painful, my hands shake, and walking down Madison Avenue I am in fear of death. But evening comes or even noon and some combination of nervous tensions obscures my memories of what whiskey costs me in the way of physical and intellectual well-being. I could very easily destroy myself. It is 10 o’clock now and I am thinking of the noontime snort.”