From time to time, we will post short interviews with interesting people about their thoughts and feelings on women and drinking. There is such a wide array of perspectives about this topic, and we are excited to gain insight into as many as possible and to share them with you.
Daphne Merkin’s books include the novel, Enchantment, and a collection of essays, Dreaming of Hitler. She is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine and a former staff writer at The New Yorker. She is currently working on a memoir about depression.
Drinking Diaries: How old were you when you had your first drink and what was it?
Daphne Merkin: I must have been about 9 or 10 and I’m pretty sure it was Schnapps.
How did your family treat drinking?
My family treated drinking like most Orthodox Jews treat it — as a goyish activity, to be indulged in on Friday nights and perhaps Shabbos lunches and on New Year’s Eve. It didn’t feature largely in the overall picture.
How do you approach alcohol in your every day life?
I approach alcohol as an under-explored possibility; I can go days at a time without drinking and then suddenly I find myself ordering three Bloody Marys before dinner. My private theory is that I have a high tolerance for liquor and that it would take a lot to make me drunk.
Can you tell us about the best time you ever had drinking?
The best time I ever had drinking was when I drank wildly one night with my underage daughter at a Mexican resort some years ago and we couldn’t stop laughing — as though the world had turned into one big joke instead of the tragicomedy it usually is.
What about the worst time?
I can’t recall a worst time.
Has drinking ever affected—either negatively or positively—any of your relationships?
I don’t mind women friends who drink a lot but I have trouble with men who seem to be closet alcoholics in their dependency on drinking. I also dislike men who respond to alcohol by getting loud and blustery; I prefer for them to retreat into sodden, woebegone states.
Has culture or religion influenced your drinking?
My religion has strongly influenced my drinking in that I continue to think of it as a quasi-exotic pastime. Suffice it to say that my mother thought of me as an incipient alcoholic once I was on my own and partaking.
Do you have a favorite book, song, or movie about drinking?
I adore Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano, which is about a drunken Consul adrift in Mexico.
If you could be any drink, what would it be and why?
I think I’d be Bombay Sapphire because I like its taste, its name, and the blue bottle. It seems like a strong blast of gin without putting you under the table.
