Austin Briggs, the Hamilton B. Tompkins Professor of English emeritus, published a letter to the editor, “Joyce and drink,” in the Sept. 13 issue of TLS, The Times Literary Supplement (London).
Briggs wrote in response to Paul Quinn’s review of The Trip to Echo Springs: Why Writers Drink, a book by Olivia Laing. Quinn praised Laing’s assertion about the “warping impact” of alcoholism on memory. Briggs contended that the “impact is not inevitable” and referenced “Joyce’s Drinking,” a paper he published in 2011 in the James Joyce Quarterly.
