alcoholism
The lonely passions of Carson McCullers
McCullers’s acclaimed first novel, written when she was 23, drew her into the orbit of several female writers with whom she fell in love – but it was never reciprocated for long
‘We are stuck like chicken feathers to tar’: Elizabeth Taylor’s description of the fabled romance
The Burton-Taylor relationship was either one of the greatest love stories of all time or a suicide pact carried out in relentless slow motion
Complicated and slightly creepy: the Bogart-Bacall romance
Lauren Bacall was 25 years younger than Humphrey Bogart. Unlike his previous wives, she stayed – though Roger Lewis finds something creepy about their relationship
Loved and lost
The third act of Morrison’s family saga focuses on Gill, the once loving and generous sister he was so close to but was unable to save
The unpleasant truth about Joseph Roth
The Radetzky March must be one of the dozen greatest European novels – but its author was frighteningly unpleasant, says Philip Hensher
The sad fate of Edna St Vincent Millay – America’s once celebrated poet
In June 1957, Robert Lowell attended a poetry reading by E.E. Cummings. Sitting dutifully and deferentially alongside him were Allen…
Nymphomaniac, fearless campaigner, alcoholic – Nancy Cunard was all this and more
Nancy Cunard’s defiance of convention began early, fuelled by bitter resentment towards her mother, says Jane Ridley
Abandoned for a bogus guru – Lily Dunn’s harrowing family memoir
Sins of My Father begins with an ending. Describing her 61-year-old parent’s final desperate flight from a life of vibrant…
A glimpse of the real Patricia Highsmith through her diaries and notebooks
Through her diaries and notebooks we finally catch a glimpse of the real Patricia Highsmith, says Christopher Priest
How Shane MacGowan became Ireland’s prodigal son
I once stood on a Dublin street with Shane MacGowan and watched little old ladies who can’t ever have been…
Our need to get drunk in company may be innate
It was once a favourite theory of optimistic drunkards that a suitably ‘moderate’ level of alcohol consumption provided covert health…
Britain’s relationship with booze is beyond abusive
I’m not one of these teetotallers who frowns on people who imbibe, like an angsty ex-smoker who petulantly swats away…
Nick Lowe is that rare phenomenon — the veteran rock star who improves with age
It is to Nick Lowe’s everlasting credit that in May 1977, a few months after David Bowie released the album…
In praise of Tove Ditlevsen — the greatest Danish writer you’ve never heard of
Pick up a Penguin Classic from a cult Danish author who ‘struggled with alcohol and drug abuse’ and took her…
25 years off the booze has taught me three simple things
Have you noticed how nearly everyone in the media has won an award? Is there even such a thing as…
Cost of Living at Hampstead Theatre isn’t a bad show – and it contains a star in the making
Hampstead has become quite a hit-factory since Ed Hall took over. His foreign policy is admirably simple. He scours New…
It’s the wreckage of alcoholism, not the road to recovery, that makes for enthralling reading
The Recovering by Leslie Jamison, novelist, columnist, bestselling essayist and assistant professor at Colombia University, makes for bracing reading. Clever,…
Art of darkness
Stephen King, 69, has sold more than 350 million books, and tries not to apologise for being working-class, or imaginative,…
Amsterdam Notebook
When my husband and I arrived in our adored Amsterdam on a sun-drenched schoolday afternoon — less than an hour…
Was there a cover-up over Shakespeare’s death?
How did Shakespeare kick the bucket? Lloyd Evans considers the evidence
More family history from Knole and Sissinghurst
In deciding to write a book about her forebears and herself, Juliet Nicolson follows in their footsteps. Given that her…
Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen reminds me of Nabokov
Eileen is an accomplished, disturbing and creepily funny first novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, the latest darling of the Paris Review,…
Hitting rock bottom in LA
The title of this book tells you a lot. Jack Sutherland, who grew up in London and Los Angeles, worked…
The poetic power of Patrick Hamilton's pubs
Nice airport was more or less deserted. Two-and-a-half hours early for the easyJet flight to Gatwick, I had a leisurely…
In and out of the drink
‘If I were to go mad,’ Amy Liptrot writes in her memoir of alcoholism and the Orkneys, ‘It would come…
