Drinking, Smoking and Screwing: Great Writers on Good Times [Paperback]

Sara Nickles (Author), Bob Shacochis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1994

Before the notion of "political correctness" encroached on the ways people spoke, wrote, and conducted themselves in public and private, some of America's best writers embraced unsafe sex, excessive alcohol, and a good cigar. From the classically libidinous Henry Miller to the hilariously contemporary Fran Lebowitz, Drinking, Smoking and Screwing includes novel excerpts, essays, poems, and short stories in a bawdy and thoroughly entertaining anthology with no warnings -- and no apologies.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Here's to the three greatest pleasures in life: a cigarette before and a martini after. Drinking, Smoking & Screwing celebrates these less-than-holy pursuits and unlocks the sweet mystery of sin with a sordid selection of essays, stories, excerpts, and poetry from noted libertines such as Mark Twain, Charles Bukowski, Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, Spalding Gray, and Dorothy Parker. Also deliciously wicked is the introduction, penned by Bob Shacochis, author of Swimming the Volcano and not one to shy away from a drink, a smoke, and a... Well, you get the point. He writes, "Not to defend smokers, drinkers, and fuckers would be a terrible mistake.... The world might be simple and clean, but it wouldn't be deliciously, fascinatingly, pathetically human, would it? Nor would it be much fun." And, damn, is this book fun. --Tod Nelson

From Library Journal

This collection of 24 poems, essays, short stories, and excerpts from novels written between 1917 and 1986 has been put together to show readers that there was a time when Americans enjoyed drinking, smoking, and screwing rather than worrying, as do many writers in the 1990s, about how these activities threaten their health. However, though many selections are amusing, most stress the problems and frustrations that result from these activities rather than the joy. Authors include Dorothy Parker, Erica Jong, Mary McCarthy, Vladimir Nabokov, J.P. Donleavy, and Henry Miller, and most of what is collected here is well known. Nothing in the organization of the material or in the introduction provides insight into either familiar or unfamiliar writings. Not recommended.
Judy Mimken, Boise, Id.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books; 3rd print edition (August 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811807843
• ISBN-13: 978-0811807845
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #236,726 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bedtime Reading For Marvellously Twisted Adults, July 24, 2000

By 

Zon Mundhenk "Zons" (Lost In America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Drinking, Smoking and Screwing: Great Writers on Good Times (Paperback)

It's a puritanical society we live in, and it sucks. This book makes for a fine release from that straightjacket.

This fabulous short story collection is pure, unadulterated (perhaps adulterous?), almost-illegal fun. Bukowski's unabashedly macho "Women", Erica Jong's Zipless...(can I say the word in a public review?), Eve Babitz's revelations on something called "The Green Death" (I must find some one day and see if it really is that good); well, it's everything your mother and the Surgeon General told you not to do, but you do anyway. Or at least you should.

Speaking of the Surgeon General, my favorite here is Fran Lebowitz's "When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes...Shut Them" (page 192), and I quote from it quite often in today's smokist, nicotine gum, get the patch society. For air pollution and my blood pressure, one would do better outlawing those pretentious, gas guzzling Suburban Utility Vehicles. I suspect that many of the writers in this book BECAME writers to be able to smoke on the job in peace.

I would quibble with a few of the inclusions. For instance, I would have used Anne Sexton's "Fury Of The Cocks" instead if "When A Man Enters A Woman". I would have picked one of Dorthy Parkers acerbic poems about love and sex rather than using "You Were Perfectly Fine". I would have left out the "Lotlita" excerpt altogether for something more overtly satisfying and taboo, such as Pat Califia's "Calyx of Isis". And I'd never have even touched the vapid, sexist, nonsensical and needlessly trashy "Candy", by Southern and Hoffenberg, which is in this collection is rather like a pimple on the chest of an otherwise exquisitely beautiful stripper.

However, the good "bad" stuff more than makes up for the, well, bad "bad" stuff, and this is a book I go back to again and again. Call it my bedtime reading, if you will....a book that goes deliciously well with a good Dunhill cigarette, a nice shot of Baileys, and a half dressed...oh, nevermind. There are kids here.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A debauched life is one worth living, May 13, 2006

By 

Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Drinking, Smoking, and Screwing: Great Writers on Good Times (Paperback)

For my generation, the road to depravity was ostensibly via sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. For the contributors to this anthology, most born in the previous generation, moral and physical ruin came from DRINKING, SMOKING & SCREWING. It's comforting to note that there's at least one vice the two generations can agree upon.

It should come as no surprise that the subject of screwing dominates eleven of the book's twenty-four chapters, followed by drinking (7), smoking (4), and a combination of the last two (2).

The subtitle of DS&S is "Great Writers on Good Times", which implies that the three vices necessarily lead to such. But this isn't the case. The twenty-six contributing authors - 19 men and 7 women - present, rather, non-judgemental evidence of the human condition that both causes and results from indulgence in the title sins. The individual pieces, like Mark Twain's "Concerning Tobacco" and Art Buchwald's "Some Heady Phrases on Wine", are personal commentary on the subject at hand, or, like Terry Southern's and Mason Hoffenberg's "Candy" and Anais Nin's "Henry and June", are excerpts from longer works of fiction. There are even a couple of short poems.

As related to the overall topic, no chapter is less than three stars, and a couple are worth five. My personal faves are "The Ginger Man" by J.P. Donleavy, about the aftermath of a cad's argument with his long-suffering wife, and "Women" by Charles Bukowski, the perfect illustration of male Homo sapiens as Sexual Pig.

Were the book to be compiled today for the current generation, I imagine the title would be something like "Sugar-Laden Sodas, Fatty Fast Foods & Unprotected Screwing." Time marches on.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What a Great Concept, December 2, 2000

By 

J. Charles Hansen (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Drinking, Smoking and Screwing: Great Writers on Good Times (Paperback)

I found this an entertaining introduction into the work of some great authors I hadn't read before, and of course the subject matter is fascinating.

I realized part way through that this is a very modern American product. Take short excerpts of famous writers works that involve debauchery, have it short enough to read in a couple of days, and market with bright red, white and blue with the word SCREWING on the cover. Maybe this is an ingenious way to hook regular Joes into reading a little good literature. In any case it worked for me.