The Trip to Echo Springs: On Writers and Drinking

London-based Laing (To the River) takes us on a trip across the United States in this unique collection of literary biographies, stopping and observing locations relevant to the lives of the authors she is investigating. Ambitiously immersed in the careers of six revered and often idolized writers, including novelist John Cheever (The Stories of John Cheever) and short story writer Raymond Carver (What We Talk About When We Talk About Love), Laing uses the authors' alcohol addiction as the linchpin that unifies their strange connectedness to one another. Laing, who grew up in an alcoholic family herself, mixes into her study an intimate and knowledgeable understanding of the chemistry of alcohol, its impact on one's thinking, and the mystique of its side effects. The culmination is a brightened awareness not only of the lives of the writers discussed but of their works, relationships, and worldviews.