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.
Lily King is the author of three novels. The Pleasing Hour (1999) won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and was a New York Times Notable Book and an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her second, The English Teacher, was a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year, a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, and the winner of the Maine Fiction Award. Father of the Rain, her third novel, was published in July, 2010. Lily is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship and a Whiting Award. Her short fiction has appeared in literary magazines including Ploughshares and Glimmer Train, as well as in several anthologies. Her website is lilykingbooks.com.
Drinking Diaries: How old were you when you had your first drink and what was it?
Lily King: I was thirteen, my mother had gone out, and my best friend and I mixed Hawaiian Punch with Grand Marnier, and within a few hours I was throwing up.
How did/does your family treat drinking?
I grew up in a community where alcohol was intrinsic to the afternoon and evening, be it at home or at social events. I saw the addiction to alcohol destroy many families and many lives. As a result, I drink very little and married a man who drinks very little. There is no Jekyll-Hyde stuff happening in our house, which was what was so scary for me as a child.
How do you approach alcohol in your every day life?
I don’t drink much, maybe one drink—usually a beer or a margarita; wine gives me headaches— once or twice a week, sometimes less.
Have you ever had a phase in your life when you drank more or less?
No, I’ve always been a little wary of alcohol. Okay, very wary. Also, I don’t usually like the way it makes me feel. It brings me down, not up.
Has drinking ever affected—either negatively or positively—a relationship of yours?
Oh God, do you have a few hours? I can’t think of a time when it affected a relationship positively, but certainly it has gotten in the way of, and ended, many relationships. I don’t have much tolerance for a committed heavy drinker in my life. I don’t like spending time with people who have one personality when sober and another when drunk. It scares me at a very deep and inchoate level. And I’ve never met someone whose way of being didn’t change after a few drinks.
Do you have a favorite book, song, or movie about drinking?
Hem’s “When I Was Drinking” comes to mind, which I think is a truly gorgeous song and captures a time and a mood and a sort of despair at losing someone to alcohol.
What do you like most about drinking?
I like the idea that it is relaxing to go out and have a drink, but alcohol in my particular system doesn’t consistently have that effect.
How has alcoholism affected your life?
I think when you grow up around people who are addicted to alcohol, you very quickly become a keen observer of mood. Your whole body becomes wired to the very subtle shifts in voice and tone that precedes the drunkenness. And you hold back. You make yourself small. You do not make waves or claim your own needs or desires. I think it has taken me a long time to get back to my normal size.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Amazing interview. I’ve been thinking about checking out this book and, after reading this, I’m definitely picking up a copy! Thank you!
Thank you for this interview, Lily. Brilliant insights. I think your last lines put into sharp focus what I, as the daughter of a recovered alcoholic, have been struggling with my whole life: how to make yourself larger after you’ve spent many years perfecting the art of shrinking yourself.
As a recovering alcoholic and a mother the hardest truth to face now is how my behaviour affected my children. Your last lines really hit hard with the reality of how children deal with an alcoholic parent. Thank you.
Wow…you really captured it with your last lines.
Thank you!