Steinbook Roundup

The first in a series of news, interviews and reviews of Drunkard: A Hard-Drinking Life by Neil Steinberg of your Chicago Sun-Times.

First up, Michael Miner of your Chicago Reader:

[Steinberg's] sixth book, Drunkard, is fascinating.

It begins—after some brief scene setting in which Steinberg describes exactly how and where he got wasted each evening before catching his train—with the night he slugged his wife, Edie, and she had him arrested. You may have read about it in the papers in 2005.

A trip to jail, rehab, and AA followed, along with sobriety and relapses, altered family life, and Steinberg’s grudging admission to himself that AA was probably right—he could only be saved if he submitted his ego to some higher power.

The problem was that he didn’t believe in a higher power, and he couldn’t pretend to himself that he did.

Bonus: A debate on the necessity of A Higher Power^TM for maintaining sobriety ensues in the Reader's comments. Jonathan Messinger interviewed Neil for Time Out Chicago:

TOC: Some of your descriptions of booze actually made me want a drink.

Neil Steinberg: This isn’t a polemic. I hope that it helps people. I’m a drinker who doesn’t drink. I don’t drink because then I want to drink more, and then it slides to hell very quickly. But drinking is a wonderful thing.

I wish I could do it.

More Drunkard coverage to follow, so if you spot something about Mr. Steinberg's book lemmie know.