These are some of the drunkest drunks in literature, taken from books that will raise your blood-alcohol level after just a few pages.
Unsurprisingly, the British have some of the booziest characters in fiction. But where are the women of alcoholic-lit? There might only be one lush lady listed here, but these broads can sure drink with the best of ’em.
Pour yourself a stiff one, and check out the alcoholics in books who give you a hangover just thinking about them.
Dean Moriarty from On The Road:
“He drank in his saloon like the ghost of his father; he slopped down wine, beer, and whisky like water. His face got red and sweaty and he bellowed and hollered at the bar and staggered across the dance-floor where honky tonkers of the West danced with girls and tried to play the piano, and he threw his arms around ex-cons and shouted with them in the uproar.”
Jack Torrance from The Shining:
“And that’s when you realize what the Wagon really is, Lloyd. It’s a church with bars on the windows, a church for women and a prison for you.”
Jake Barnes from The Sun Also Rises:
“This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don’t want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste.”
Ben Sanderson from Leaving Las Vegas:
“If he drinks one hundred dollars a day – and he can – he’s got one hundred days to drink. It’s just an arithmetic operation, simple logic.”
Rachel from The Girl On The Train:
“Blackouts happen, and it isn’t just a matter of being a bit hazy about getting home from the club or forgetting what it was that was so funny when you were chatting in the pub. It’s different. Total black; hours lost, never to be retrieved.”
