• It was through reading that I discovered the crucial, even sacrosanct place the rituals of drinking held in the American imagination - the ingenious way alcohol seemed to lubricate everything from onerous chitchat to self-conscious sexual advances.

    Daphne Merkin: It was through reading that I discovered the crucial, even sacrosanct place the rituals of drinking held in the American imagination - the ingenious way alcohol seemed to lubricate everything from onerous chitchat to self-conscious sexual advances.