Five Books to Booze With

The study of literature is supposed to be a serious and sober-minded pursuit, but that seems unfair, as so many of our great writers, from Parker and Faulkner to Chandler and Cheever, were notorious lushes. You, reader, should feel no shame mixing the two either, soaking your mind in both liquor and literature, cocktails and classics. And if you're reading a book filled with boozy adventures, it's really the right thing to do.

With that in mind, here are five great books that make you want to booze, and recommendations for what to drink while reading them.

Barry Hannah

Rumor has it that Barry Hannah was as mad and drunk as his narrator, Dr. Ray, while writing this book and that editor Gordon Lish had to carve a novel out of the sloppy and stained pages Hannah left for him. Whatever the truth, the result is a brilliant free-wheeling southern adventure. Ray is a drunken, small-town doctor and ex-fighter pilot who wishes he was a poet. Plenty happens with Ray, but he is less a protagonist than a filter for Hannah's madcap vision. Barry Hannah is sober now, though equally brilliant, but this careening novella is from his drunken days: "The trouble with the drinking, much as I hate to admit it, is it helped the work....You think better. You're braver, and you'll say anything. If you could just hang in there with two or three, it'd be beautiful. The trouble was I couldn't."* At a brief 113 pages, this tight masterpiece shouldn't last you more than a few highballs.

Companion drink: Bourbon & lemonade

*Tower, Wells. "Barry Hannah's Long Shadow." Garden & Gun Magazine. November 2008.

A Fan's Notes
Frederick Exley

What would happen if the bastard son of J.D. Salinger and Charles Bukowski, drunk on poetry and cheap beer, crashed his motorcycle into a backyard gala hosted by Jay Gatsby? The resulting mess might look like Frederick Exley's debut novel, A Fan's Notes. A Fan's Notes is Exley's mostly-autobiographical account of a life spent battling demons that range from alcoholism and a disapproving father to an unhealthy obsession with '50s-era halfback Frank Gifford. Exley holds nothing back while chronicling his failures, but his frequently humorous writing avoids the pitfalls of modern addiction memoirs. The result is a rare combination of tragedy and hilarity that is distinctly American.

Companion drink: A good American ale.

Donald Barthelme

Paradise does not contain as much boozing as the other books listed, although several bottles of wine and scotch are consumed. Rather, it makes the list because it is so clearly a drunkard's fantasy. Simon, a middle-age architect with a self-deprecating sense of humor, goes on sabbatical and finds himself living with three bubbly fashion models. The women alternate between committing sexual acts with Simon and squabbling amongst each other. Every now and then they look for a job. It may sound like a typical "hog heaven" fantasy, but Barthelme keeps it fresh with off-kilter metaphors and perfectly irreverent dialogue. Soon the unlikely foursome form a sort of family and a thread of sadness can be seen beneath the whimsy.

Companion drink: Gin and tonic

Ham on Rye
Charles Bukowski

It is a legal requirement for critics to include Bukowski in any article dealing with books and booze. Charles Bukowski's appeal is as much about the myth of the insane, drunk writer as about his actual writings. Still, no one writes about drinking as thoroughly or consistently as Bukowksi. Ham on Rye outlines the early years of Bukowksi's alter ego, Henry Chinaski, as he comes of age. Imagine Holden Caulfield if he was a poor, misanthropic drunk with disfiguring acne who could only find solace in drinking cheap hooch, fighting in bars and sleeping with loose women. The writing packs a punch, even if it sometimes sits uneasily in your stomach like too many shots of well vodka. Bukowski makes you feel he really did live a life like this...although you do wonder what he did on the days he didn't go to the track or bar.

Companion drink: Red wine (from a box)

The Violent Bear it Away

Flannery O'Connor

All good benders have to come to an end and what better way to sober up than plunging through the dark Christian vision of Flannery O'Connor. "Francis Marion Tarwater's uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave," begins The Violent Bear it Away, but there is no cheer in this drink. Francis Tarwater has been raised by his fanatical uncle to believe he is a prophet destined to baptize his mentally retarded cousin. After his uncle dies, Tarwater flees his destiny through a grotesque southern landscape until finally accepting his calling. If you didn't know better, O'Connor's brilliantly dark and twisted tale might read like a parody of Christian values. Either way, it is a sure bet to scare the sin out of you.

Companion drink: Black coffee

Lincoln Michel was born in a moonshine still in central Virginia. His work appears in Mississippi Review,, Quarter After Eight, Mid-American Review and elsewhere. He keeps and infrequently updated lit blog at at

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