The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath

The Recovering blends memoir, cultural history, literary criticism, and reportage to examine addiction and recovery narratives. Leslie Jamison explores the stories we tell about addiction—her own and others'—and investigates what these narratives attempt to accomplish and where they fall short. The book traces the history of the recovery movement while examining how race and class shape understandings of criminality and illness. Jamison discusses the lives and works of literary and artistic figures affected by alcoholism and substance dependence, including John Berryman, Jean Rhys, Billie Holiday, Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson, David Foster Wallace, and George Cain. Through her own experiences, she explores dependency as a broader human condition—the ways desire and the craving for love can consume and define us. The book presents addiction and recovery as interconnected experiences in American life, offering an account that examines loneliness, need, and what shapes human identity.