”Do you feel differently about these scribes after spending so much time thinking and Writing about them?
Olivia Lang: I went through stages. Encountering the damage that alcoholics do, both to their own lives and to those around them, is grim, particularly if you have personal experience of it. There were definitely moments when I felt like I’d happily never read about Hemingway again. But then I returned to the fiction, and remembered why I was interested in them all in the first place. I definitely lost some of my affection for Raymond Carver after reading his first wife’s memoir. I hope the book isn’t judgmental, though. I didn’t feel judgmental. Sad, sometimes a bit sick, but also aware of how large a place circumstance plays in any — every — life.”
Citerat ur Michele Filgates intervju med Olivia Laing, vars litterära reportage The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking (Canongate) var en av förra årets bästa böcker, alla kategorier. Det är en studie av sex amerikanska författare som brottades med alkoholproblem.
Boken, som också är en reseskildring, lämnar inte mycket utrymme för alkoholromantik. Vi skrev ett kort och lite mer informativt blogginlägg om Laings bok när den kom ut förra året: ”Sex författare som härjades av alkoholen”.
Ola Wihlke
BearBooks 