Alcoholism is not an entertaining disease, and let no one claim that it is. “But drunks do make great literary characters. They are quest-driven and tragic, marked for a destiny they cannot escape, and full of passion… Like all great literary subjects, drinking is transformative; it changes the metabolism of the alcoholic, even the very structure of his cells. It allows for carnivalesque abandon and provides the novelist with a catalyst for visionary truth… The best writing about alcoholics manages to explore the degradation the disease inflicts while respecting the dignity of its victim.”