The book offers a socio-critical analysis of the alcoholic perception in the poetry and fiction of modern American alcoholic writers. Matts Djos focuses on primary indicators of alcohol addiction (fear, manipulation, anger, loneliness, and antic-social behavior) and their expression in modern American literature. After providing a general foundation for analysis of the psychological effects of the disease, this volume scrutinizes the work of Ernest Hemingway, John Berryman, E.A. Robinson, Hart Crane, Theodore Roetheke, Robert Lowell, John Steinbeck, and William Faulkner. The detail provides critical and in-depth perspective on the workings of the alcoholic mind.