Many years ago, the Duck related to me a story that a professor of English told her class about how every American writer who had won the Nobel Prize for Literature had died of alcoholism or of complications related to alcoholism, often suicide. The professor, who himself was an American, took great pride in cataloguing the conditions and circumstances of each author's demise. Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald: all winners in Swedish standing and all well-recognized drunks. And those are just the first few that come to mind.
Maisonneuve magazine has published a list of great literary drunks with a brief history of their drinking. It makes for some interesting reading and some cautionary tales. It also suggests a drink dedicated to the demise of each author.
So what connects authors and alcoholism so intimately?
Posted by James Sherrett at February 25, 2004 01:41 PM