Introduction : addiction recovery and the world as it should be -- The drunkard's conversion and the salvation of the social order -- "What a radical found in Water Street" -- The varieties of conversion polemic -- New Deal individualism and the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous -- Literary realism and the secularization of the drunkard's conversion -- The drinker's epiphany in modernist literature -- The Iceman Cometh and the drama of disillusion -- Recovery memoir and the crack-up of liberalism -- Conclusion : addiction in a new era of recovery
Summary
In this book, the author illuminates the role sobriety movements have played in placing notions of personal and societal redemption at the heart of modern American culture. The author argues against the dominant scholarly perception that recovery narratives are private and apolitical, showing that in fact the genre's conventions turn private experience to public political purpose. Further, the New Deal-era Alcoholics Anonymous refitted the "drunkard's conversion" as a model of selfhood for the liberal era, allowing for a spiritual redemption story that could accommodate a variety of identities and compulsions. The author concludes by considering how contemporary recovery narratives represent both a crisis in liberal democracy and a potential for redemptive social progress. -- Adapted from back cover
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-309) and index
