Those Drinking Days by Donald Newlove

Those Drinking Days by Donald Newlove

Novelist Donald Newlove (1928-2021) contemplates how alcoholism has affected the lives and work of other writers, as well as himself.

. . . a passionate blend: part autobiography, part confessional, part sketches of famous alcoholic writers and part sermon on the dangers of 'Drunkspeare' . . . its bird song and purling ravishment, bliss of self-love. . . . Like improvisational jazz . . . the Newlove sound is robust and swinging, the mark of a man who has discovered that his talent is intoxication enough.

- R.Z. Sheppard, Time

Newlove's memoir makes The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson seem like a dull college weekend. It is, quite simply, terrifying, a tale to chill the blood of anyone who's ever hoisted a drink in a bar. It is a book with both literary merit and social value of the most redeeming sort imaginable.

- Judson Hand, New York Daily News

Those Drinking Days ought to be read. It is an astonishing, moving memoir.

- Joel Oppenheimer, New York Times