DEVIL BY THE TAIL

by Langston Moffett'25. J. B. Lippincott, 1947; 431 pages; $3.00.

In this long novel Seneca is quoted: "Drunkenness is nothing but a voluntary madness," and to this might be added that it is also "the voluntary extinction of reason." Gordon Sullivan, a neurotic product of our time, and the spoiled son of one of Phil Wylie's "moms," is consumed by so many phobias, and driven by so many neuroses, that he drinks himself into a stupor so often that the reader, in spite of the inherent tragedy of Sullivan's plight, finds it difficult to feel much sympathy for him. This, in spite of the fact that we know alcoholism is a disease, most difficult to cure, and that deep down Gordon Sullivan is worth saving. The reader suffers interminably with him as the author spares us little. This novel of alcoholism to end all novels of alcoholism does come off brilliantly, though this reviewer believes that it would have been the better for some judicious cutting. In reading more than 400 pages of alcoholic delirium, albeit skillfully done, the patience of all but a psychiatrist is severely tried.

We follow Sullivan through tortuous paths in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S.A.; we suffer with him in sanatoriums which are peopled with so many nymphomaniacs that they seem to be, and may very well be, rather ritzy brothels. We agree with his wife, the longsuffering Sonia, that he is a no-good so-and-so, ■and yet we are asked to believe—and it may be true—that after a fifteen-year binge, a lost decade and a half, he suddenly emerges completely dry from the bottle, happy once again with his wife and family. A result devoutly to be wished.

In comparing it, as many will, with TheLost Weekend, by Charles Jackson, it may be said that it lacks the concentrated horror and tragedy of that classically planned novel. If alcoholism is one of the major diseases of our time this book is an able case history, but it cannot be recommended for a pleasant evening's reading before the fire.