Search - Drinking: A Love Story

Several adjectives for this book come to mind: powerful, gripping, eye-opening, and alarming.

This is the true story of a woman alcholic and her travels through the disease of alcoholism.

A professional journalist, Knapp's story is like reading "The Lost Weekend". However, She is not skilled at turning a phrase and her writing is prosaic.

It is the story itself that keeps the pages turning. If your interest is in learning about alcoholism and the peculiar rational that sustains alcoholics down through the years, get this book.

*caroline's memoir is brave and important..The story of women, not just alcoholic women..her story is the victorious report of a woman's coming of age*


R.I.P.
CAROLINE KNAPP
Caroline Knapp died on Monday, June 3, 2006 from complications arising from lung cancer. She was 42. Her second book, Drinking: A Love Story (Dial, 1996), about her struggle to come to terms with alcoholism, made her national reputation.

Her second bestseller, Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs (Dial, 1998), solidified her standing as a writer of distinction. Ostensibly a book about dogs, it is, like so much of Caroline's work, at heart about love and relationships. Just before she died, she finished her latest work, a book about women's appetites for, among other things, life, love, food, and sex.

Caroline died at Mount Auburn Hospital, where she was closely attended during the days before her death by her family, her friend and companion of many years, photographer Mark Morelli, and her dog, Lucille. Caroline and Mark were married in May, a few weeks after she was diagnosed.

I read this three times and found it to be extremely intersting how far deep someone can get beforew they recognize the problems.

Knapp reveals so much about her reasons for abusing alcohol. I've never read a book that gives such a detailed poignant and intelligent account of the inner thoughts and feelings that lead one to need alcohol, why one drink is "never enough." I was enthralled.

Definitely intriguing

My book club chose this book, and I wasn't sure how I was going to like it, but I ended up really enjoying it and for the most part, found it a page turner. I work in the health field so I know something about how devastating alcoholism is, but this memoir brought all those statistics to life through the author's gripping account of her own struggle with the disease. I found it difficult to relate to alcoholism as a disease until I read this book: the kind of obsessive behavior and physiological responses she describes really bring it home.

But the heart of the story is the author's searing honesty about the life she was living as an alcoholic - the lies she told, the relationships she wrecked, and most importantly, how alcohol stunted her emotional growth and ability to mature. Well written, witty, and moving, I highly recommend this book, even for folks (like myself) who might've thought they'd be put off by the subject matter.

When I finished, I looked up Caroline Knapp to see if she had any other books and find out how she was doing, if she was still sober. I was sad to hear that just a few years after she got sober, she died of lung cancer (smoking was her other addiction) at 42. I think she probably appreciated the irony that in the end, it was lung cancer and not alcoholism that got her, and I bet she was grateful that unlike her father, she had made choices before her death that meant she met it sober and lucid, and after she'd had the chance to repair some of the damage her alcoholism caused. I hope she found the peace she so desperately sought in the end.