Susan Cheever is the author of E.E. Cummings, American Bloomsbury, which was on the Boston Globe bestseller list for three months, along with five novels and four memoirs. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker and the New York Times, among other magazines and anthologies, has been nominated for a National Book Circle Award, and won the Boston GlobeWinship medal. She attended Brown and has taught at Yale, Brown, Columbia, Bennington and elsewhere.
"[A] cockeyed retelling of the American story."--The Week
"A chronicle of America's past that is full of details they never
told you back in fifth grade."--Minneapolis Star Tribune
"A fascinating look at the place and function of alcohol throughout
American history...[Cheever] offers a colorful portrait of a
society that, like her own family, has been indelibly shaped by its
drinking habits. An intelligently argued study of our country's
'passionate connection to drinking.'"--Kirkus Reviews
"A highly readable, in-your-face look at not only the destructive
power of alcohol in America, but the strange way it shaped our
history."--San Antonio Express-News
"A riveting, revisionist take on so many great events and people...
fascinating, unusual history... her research is spot on."--The New
York Social Diary
"A unique cultural tour."--BookTrib
"At once fascinating and slightly disturbing."--The Oklahoman
"Cheever addresses serious subjects with casual and at times
humorous prose, making this book surprisingly fun to read. You
won't find this booze-filled version of American history in any
textbooks, but as with any good barroom conversation, you'll learn
just as much."--Kansas City Star
"Cheever is full of such shocking and often delightful revelations
of a history we never learned in school."--Newsday
"Cheever lays bare something many of us know intimately:
'alcoholism is a family disease, ' she writes, and its roots in the
American family run deep."--Boston Globe
"Cheever serves up a sober cocktail of American history...offers up
sideways views that are intriguing."--Associated Press
"Cheever's central observation is fascinating...The melting pot, it
seems, was also a mixing bowl."--Publishers Weekly
"Compelling...[a] brisk drinker's companion to US history, which
runs a black light over the archives to ask: who was loaded, and
why did it matter?... It's the fourth of Wilson's famous 12 steps
that made it common practice for sober folk to dig into their own
pasts in order to articulate the role of alcohol - to create a
'searching and fearless moral inventory' - and with DRINKING IN
AMERICA, Cheever submits the US to a similar investigation. Along
the way, we see a country struggling to negotiate its freedoms,
nurtured by alcohol and undone by it as well....This approach can
be illuminating, turning those sepia-toned historical figures in
wigs into uncertain young men with tankards of rum in their
hands."--Los Angeles Review of Books
"DRINKING IN AMERICA at times has many shocking revelations of the
role alcohol has played in our country that is a great addition to
the legends of this nation."--Midwest Book Review
"Full of compelling ideas...Cheever is smart, perceptive and
disciplined...Her Nixon chapter in particular is alternately
horrifying and delightful, and paints a compelling picture of the
monstrous complexity of a 'great man.'"--Buffalo News
"Full of fascinating details...this book is an important and highly
entertaining step in the right direction."--Women's Voices for
Change
"Goes down like a smooth glass of wine after a long day...Whether
you're a drinker or a teetotaler, if you like a wee nip of history,
then here's the book you want."--The Bookworm Sez
"I can't stop raving (soberly!) about Susan Cheever's new book...
It is both enlightening and frightening. A brilliant and important
addition to our understanding of what goes wrong and what can
continue to go wrong in a world dominated by the most deadly legal
liquid ever invented."--Judy Collins
"If you're looking for a sobering introduction to drunk history,
this is the book for you."--Toronto Star
"Informative, entertaining and scary...this book brings history to
life and pours it a tall one."--High Times
"Insightful...well-researched and well-developed...An engrossing,
in-depth examination of the profound ways alcohol and drinking have
shaped and contributed to American history."--Shelf Awareness
"Packed with the liquor-soaked legacy of our country...[Cheever]
presents a chronicle of the United States that has, to my
knowledge, never been attempted. And it is a riveting, revisionist
take on so many great events and people...fascinating, unusual
history."--The Palm Beach Post
"Susan Cheever offers a humane but unsentimental view of our
nation's inebriated past in DRINKING IN AMERICA. To excuse the pun,
it's an addictive read full of wit and verve, revealing the deep
influence of alcohol on many of our country's most significant
moments, from the landing at Plymouth Harbour, to the Kennedy
Assassination and Watergate. This is terrific social history but
not as it's usually told, and all the better for it."--Amanda
Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire (winner of the
Whitbread) and A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the
American Civil War
"This is Drunk History, but thoroughly researched and soberly
elucidated."--The Portland Mercury
"Vivid...some of the book's most affecting moments arrive when
Cheever discusses her family's drinking problems. "--The San
Francisco Chronicle
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