Who was your first 😳?

The first person you compared your alcohol intake to, that is.

If you read last week's letter, then you know, #amwriting. I'm currently developing a character that is loosely based on one of my best friends from college, Anya. That is her real name and it's important for me to use it, at least here, because she's one of those people in your life you don't forget. And since I can't tell her that, nor can I tell her parents, this is the only way I know how to continue loving my friends that have died.

Anya and I were both nineteen when we met, even though she seemed at least five years older than me. She knew things I didn't, like how to shoot a gun, how to follow your bliss like Joseph Campbell, that juniper berries smelled just like gin, and what it was like to escape the Holocaust like her Mom had. She also knew how to drink. She was the first person I hedged my drinking behavior against: I go to class, even hungover and she hasn't been to one class this week; I don't drink before noon on weekdays (the Bloody Marys on Sundays or the bottles of wine cracked open on the PMS-skip-days don't count); I don't need pot in the morning to quell the shakes, but there isn't enough coffee on campus to keep me from nodding off in Chemistry. Her hugs never lasted less than 25 seconds and she was the first person I knew who got sober, decades before I even understood what that actually meant. More about her next week.

Last week, I also mentioned that I'm reading books that my book could potentially saddle up next to. This exercise is to make a list officially called "Book Comps" that you would include in an agent query but really, it's just gd enjoyable.

I'm slightly embarrassed that I've just finished Here Kitty, Kitty by Jardine Libaire.

Embarrassed because she took the time to send it to me two years ago, but in my defense, it was swiftly packed up in the great Remodel Move before I had a chance to read it. However, I did have a chance to gush over another of her books, The Sober Lush, that she co-wrote with Amanda Eyre Ward, just last summer when they came on The Unruffled Podcast, so I've made it up to her.

Here Kitty Kitty is very accurate at depicting how stripped down and bare your thoughts become when you are in active addiction, as portrayed by the narrator, Lee. Even as she's surrounded by the pulsating life of beauty and decay that is NYC. Jardine writes so shrewdly how addiction puts a barrier between you and your longings, one impossible to cross until your addiction has been reckoned with. I understood Lee. Again, I don't know if Addiction Fiction is a real genre, but if it does exist, this book fits nicely and Jardine is just an exquisite writer.

I have more book comps in my pile and look forward to sharing more with you. Do you have a favorite? Feel free to pass on your recommendations. In the meantime, #amwriting and #amsewing and #amnotcomplaining.