Overview

Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as ""liquid armor,"" a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it. It was love at first sight. The beads of moisture on a chilled bottle. The way the glasses clinked and the conversation flowed. Then it became obsession. The way she hid her bottles behind her lover's refrigerator. The way she slipped from the dinner table to the bathroom, from work to the bar. And then, like so many love stories, it fell apart. Drinking is Caroline Kapp's harrowing chronicle of her twenty-year love affair with alcohol. Caroline had her first drink at fourteen. She drank through her yeras at an Ivy League college, and through an award-winning career as an editor and columnist. Publicly she was a dutiful daughter, a sophisticated professional. Privately she was drinking herself into oblivion. This startlingly honest memoir lays bare the secrecy, family myths, and destructive relationships that go hand in hand with drinking. And it is, above all, a love story for our times—full of passion and heartbreak, betrayal and desire—a triumph over the pain and deception that mark an alcoholic life.  Praise for Drinking “Quietly moving . . . Caroline Knapp dazzles us with her heady description of alcohol's allure and its devastating hold.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Filled with hard-won wisdom . . . [a] perceptive and revealing book.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Eloquent . . . a remarkable exercise in self-discovery.”—The New York Times “Drinking not only describes triumph; it is one.”—Newsweek

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Reviews

Uncanny, chilling, honest, brave, and a wonderful read.

Caroline Knapp is a rare writer, with a sophisticated, beautifully controlled style. Drinking not only describes a triumph; it is one. A remarkable exercise in self-discovery. Knapp recounts her love affair passionately. In paragraphs where she nostalgically remembers sloshing vodka over ice, the sensuality of her language can give you a contact high. Uncanny, chilling, honest, brave, and a wonderful read.

Author Information

Caroline Knapp was a contributor at New Woman magazine and a regular columnist at The Boston Phoenix, and her work has appeared in Mademoiselle, The New York Times, and numerous international magazines.  She is also the author of Alice K's Guide to Life and Pack of Two. Caroline Knapp died in 2002 at the age of 42.

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