An alcoholic on awakening is much like a newborn baby--fragile and
without any defense against a very sober world. September Remember
begins with a terrifying--and darkly funny blackout--the sort of a
blackout that pulls you right into the mind of a drunk on the loose.
Reading it, I was reminded of my AA friend picking me up in his truck,
the uncertainty of that boozy hazy evening. The blackout is not the
story of September Remember, but it's that darkness that will suck you
into this story.
When published, September Remember was a best seller, and the first
known novel that put AA into literary consciousness. It's been out of
print now for over 60 years.
The book is full of language and prejudices that are reflective of its
time. That was the time of America between the two world wars: more than
twenty years before Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, years
before women made it out of the kitchen into the living room, and years
before new immigrants were only recognizable by the derogatory terms
used to describe them. In that way, September Remember can be treated as
a historical document that mentions Alcoholics Anonymous, but it is much
more than that: its mythology is essentially AA's, a story of rebirth
and redemption.
