The story of this book is the story of its sources. Because I wanted to write a book that worked like a meeting, I knew I needed to include the stories of others alongside my own. But one of my highest priorities in writing about recovery was preserving the anonymity of many of the people I was writing about. To this end, the people in recovery whose stories appear most extensively here—Sawyer, Gwen, Marcus, and Shirley—are all people I approached as a journalist, and their names have been changed. They agreed to have their lives become part of this project, and I am deeply grateful to them for their time, their honesty, their memories, and their insights. Their stories are based on telephone and in-person interviews conducted over the course of 2015.
I have also changed the name of almost every contemporary person in recovery who appears in this book—except when they requested I didn’t—and, in certain cases, identifying details such as geographic location or gender. Whenever possible, I have secured the consent of everyone who appears as a figure in these pages, and if they are part of my narrative, I have given them the opportunity to read through the pages in which they appear. I’m grateful for their generosity and their openness.
In order to preserve their anonymity, I have not written extensively about many of the people who were most important to my recovery. But my gratitude to them runs deep. Thank you to everyone—the unnamed, anonymous, glorious everyone—whose sobriety has become part of my own.
In researching this book, I spent time at a number of archives, and I’m grateful to everyone who helped me navigate them: the Charles R. Jackson Papers at the Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; the John Berryman Papers at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; the Jean Rhys Archive at the McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Narcotic Farm Records at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland; the Stepping Stones Foundation Archive in Katonah, New York; the Center of Alcohol Studies Library at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey; the David Foster Wallace Papers and the Denis Johnson Papers at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin; and the William S. Burroughs Papers at Columbia University, New York City.
I consulted three clinicians and researchers for their perspectives on the science and treatment of addiction: Meg Chisolm, Adam Kaplin, and Greg Hobelmann, all practicing clinicians at (or affiliated with) Johns Hopkins University Hospital. I also found several conversations with writer Lucas Mann tremendously valuable in thinking about the relationship between twelve-step recovery and medication-assisted treatment. Carlton Erickson’s Science of Addiction, Carl Hart’s High Price, and Maia Szalavitz’s Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction all clarified and reshaped my sense of the physiological and psychological complexities of addiction—as well as the ways addiction research has been skewed to tell particular stories.
The literary and biographical analysis in these pages owes a tremendous amount to the work of literary biographers. I’m particularly indebted to Blake Bailey for his enchanting and impeccably researched biography of Charles Jackson, Farther and Wilder, and for his always convivial company, on the page and off. Blake’s feedback on my own work about Jackson went above and beyond the call of duty. We do not always agree, but my work is always strengthened by our disputes. I consulted D. T. Max’s thoughtful biography of David Foster Wallace, Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story, as well as his reported work on Malcolm Lowry and Raymond Carver, and he was kind enough to provide insightful and generous feedback on several sections of this book. A number of other biographies were invaluable: Douglas Day’s Malcolm Lowry; Carol Sklenicka’s Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life; Carole Angier’s Jean Rhys: Life and Work; Lilian Pizzichini’s The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys; John Haffenden’s Life of John Berryman; John Szwed’s Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth; and Julia Blackburn’s With Billie: A New Look at the Unforgettable Lady Day, as well as Billie Holiday’s Lady Sings the Blues. I’m also grateful to George Cain’s family—especially Jo Pool and Malik Cain—for sharing memories of his life.
In my literary analysis, I was in conversation with a number of deeply insightful critics and scholars who helped shaped my understanding of the complicated links between addiction, recovery, and creativity: John Crowley’s White Logic: Alcoholism and Gender in American Modernist Fiction and Olivia Laing’s Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking, as well as Elaine Blair’s New York Review of Books essay on David Foster Wallace (“A New Brilliant Start”), are all works of literary criticism that examine with humanity and insight the relationship between addiction, recovery, and creativity. Crowley’s book was especially formative and helpful in its illuminating treatment of the rivalry between Jackson and Lowry, and the ways in which The Lost Weekend and Under the Volcano offer contrasting visions of alcoholism.
As I tried to figure out the larger social context for how addiction has been narrated in twentieth-century America, I found tremendous—and necessarily horrifying—insight and illumination in Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Drew Humphries’s Crack Mothers: Pregnancy, Drugs, and the Media, Johann Hari’s Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, and Doris Marie Provine’s Unequal Under Law: Race in the War on Drugs. Avital Ronell’s Crack Wars: Literature Addiction Mania and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s “Epidemics of the Will” helped structure my thinking about how the social imagination has absorbed and produced various, often contradictory, notions of addiction. Gabor Maté’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction helped me think about addiction, harm reduction, and decriminalization in new ways. Nancy Campbell, J. P. Olsen, and Luke Walden’s The Narcotic Farm was a vital resource on the cure at Lexington. I also consulted the literary accounts of the Narcotic Farm offered in Clarence Cooper’s Farm, William Burroughs’s Junkie, Billy Burroughs Jr.’s Kentucky Ham, and Helen MacGill Hughes’s Fantastic Lodge: The Autobiography of a Girl Drug.
I’m grateful to all the clinicians, social workers, and caregiving professionals aiding vulnerable populations struggling with substance dependence who shared their insights and wisdom with me along the way. Substantial portions of the advance from this book have gone to support two nonprofit organizations devoted to aiding vulnerable populations affected by substance dependence: the Bridge, a New York City transitional housing facility; and Marian House, a Baltimore transitional housing facility that serves women emerging from incarceration, homelessness, and inpatient treatment programs.
Much of the research for this book was drawn from the dissertation I wrote for my doctoral program at Yale University, and I’m grateful to my advisers there: Wai Chee Dimock, Amy Hungerford, and Caleb Smith. All three of them supported me with hard questions and keen insights, again and again, over the course of many years. Caleb offered me the provocation I needed, even—often—when I didn’t know I needed it. My once-teacher and forever-friend Charles D’Ambrosio is one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met. His words are with me every time I sit down to write.
The Lannan Foundation generously gave me a residency in Marfa, Texas, for the month of April 2015, and it’s not hyperbole to say that this month allowed the book to come to life: I spread an outline across the floor of my office, worked twelve hours a day, and finally believed that it could actually be.
I’ve been lucky enough to work with extraordinary editors near and far, especially Max Porter at Granta, Karsten Kredel at Hanser Berlin, Svante Weyler at Weyler Förlag, Robbert Ammerlaan and Diana Gvozden at Hollands Diep, Sophie de Closets and Leonello Brandolini at Fayard, and—of course, always—Jeff Shotts and Fiona McCrae at Graywolf, and the inimitable Amber Qureshi, all friends and allies and kindred spirits for life, as well as Michael Taeckens, who holds a special place in my heart. Thank you to Trinity Ray and Kevin Mills at the Tuesday Agency, who make hitting the road possible. Thank you to my inspiring colleagues at Columbia University, a community I’m perpetually grateful to be part of; and to all my students past and present—at Columbia, Yale, Wesleyan, and Southern New Hampshire University—who have challenged, surprised, and inspired me. Sean Lavery spent almost a year fact-checking this book, setting me straight about Real World, the War on Drugs, and everything in between.
I’ve been working with the Wylie Agency for more than a decade, and I consider myself absurdly lucky to have landed with Andrew Wylie, who believed in me from the beginning, and the unstoppable Jin Auh, a force of nature who has been my ally, confidante, fierce advocate, and cherished friend for years. A particular thanks also to Jessica Friedman, savior and wunderkind, and to the folks at Wylie UK, especially Luke Ingram and Sarah Chalfant.
Thank you to everyone at Little, Brown: Reagan Arthur, for believing, and Michael Pietsch, for inviting me into a legacy I admire so deeply. Thank you to Allison Warner, for designing such a beautiful jacket; to Pamela Marshall, Deborah P. Jacobs, and David Coen, for making sure everything was right inside; and to Craig Young, Lauren Velasquez, Sabrina Callahan, and Liz Garriga, for helping to bring it to the world. Thank you to Cheryl Smith and Charles McCrorey, for welcoming me into their enchanted audio cave; to Sarah Haugen and Cynthia Saad; and of course to Paul Boccardi, for coming to that first meeting. Last but not least, my deep gratitude to the fiercely intelligent and deeply passionate Ben George. I believed you were the editor for this book from the very beginning, but working on it with you was more intense, and more rewarding, than I ever could have imagined. Thank you for your humanity, your relentless belief, and your soulful eye. You do the work right.
I am lucky to count so many extraordinary writers and thinkers as the deep and lasting friends of my life. They listened to me talk about this book for eight years, and I’m grateful for it, particularly to the ones who read portions of this book (Jeremy Reff and Greg Pardlo) and the ones who—miraculously—read the whole damn thing: Harriet Clark, Colleen Kinder, Greg Jackson, Nam Le, Emily Matchar, Kyle McCarthy, Jacob Rubin, and Robin Wasserman. I’m also grateful for the grace of their company and wisdom, along with countless others, especially Rachel Fagnant, Abby Wild, Aria Sloss, Katie Parry, Bri Hopper, Tara Menon, Alexis Chema, Casey Cep, Miranda Featherstone, Ben Nugent, Kiki Petrosino, Max Nicholas, Jim Weatherall, Nina Siegel, Bridget Talone, Emma Borges-Scott, Margot Kaminski, Jenny Zhang, Michelle Huneven, Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Taryn Schwilling, Ali Mariana, Susan Szmyt, Staci Perelman, the ladies of DeLuxe—especially Jamie Powers and Mary Simmons—and the Lunch Bunch from way back when: Eve Peters, Amalia McGibbon, Caitlin Pilla, and Meg Swertlow.
I owe a particular note of thanks to David Gorin, who read drafts of this book not once but twice, and offered his heart and singular mind to the task of making it truer. DG: Thank you for our years together, and for the care, intelligence, insight, and grace you brought to this project.
Thank you to my entire extended family, who fill my life with anchoring and inspiration: Jim, Phyllis, Ben, Georgia, Genevieve, Ian, Cathie, Kerry, Colin, and all their next generations; Grandpa Jack (at one hundred years old!); and especially my aunts Kay and Kathleen, as well as my stepparents, Mei and Walter. Gratitude to my brothers, Julian and Eliot, worshipped from the very beginning, and their beautiful families; to my father, Dean, whom I love so much it makes my heart swell; and to my singular, beloved mother, Joanne Leslie, for whom there will never be enough words, or enough gratitude, only the knowledge that nothing I do would be possible without her love.
Thank you to Lily: beautiful human, dervish tornado, firecracker and delight.
Thank you to Ione Bird, who breaks me open with love each day. Everything is still ahead.
Finally, thank you to my husband, Charles Bock, who read this book first, and helped me see what it could become; then read it again, a year later, and helped me take it the rest of the way. I’m grateful for your intelligence, your own beautiful writing, and—most of all—your love. You make me laugh like no one else. Thank you for making every day of life better than the script I could have written for it.