THE LOST WEEKEND by Charles Jackson

 Re-finished Mo 2/22/21 

This is one of my trade paperbacks that I finished on Mo 2/24/97 at FitClub West.

Don Birnam's Five Day Binge. 

Wick- Don's concerned brother

Helen- Don's selfless girlfriend

Set on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan.

Homosexuality's implied as a possible reason for Don's condition.

The book was unfavorably compared to 'UNDER THE VOLCANO' by Malcolm Lowry. I have the movie in my Netflix queue and I have the novel somewhere in the collection. I might buy it on Kindle for $2.99.

The book's page at Wikipedia:

ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Weekend_(novel)

From a review of the film at Netflix

In November of 1944, when Charles Jackson spoke to members of Alcoholics Anonymous on the topic "Why I Wrote ‘The Lost Week-End,’” he said there was “a sore need . . . for such a character study as that of Don Birnam. . . . The public needed to be shown the true tragic nature of the alcoholic.” Many A.A.s wondered whether Jackson himself was an alcoholic. He cryptically replied that while the events of the story were fictional, his understanding portrayal of Don Birnam was because “I have a good memory.”

Not nearly as good as 'A MILLION LITTLE PIECES' by James Frey, but 'THE LOST WEEKEND' was one of the first times that AA's position was fully stated in a fictional story. 

I like the 'addiction genre' of literature and this one was worth a look, but not a leader in the field.