Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2013
Simultaneously published in the US in 2013 by Harper Wave,
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
Copyright © Ann Dowsett Johnston 2013
Ann Dowsett Johnston asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint from previously published material:
Various portions of this book first appeared in the author’s series on Women and Alcohol in the Toronto Star in 2011. Used by kind permission from the Atkinson Foundation and the Toronto Star.
Portions of Chapter 2: Out of Africa first appeared in Maclean’s as “Postcards from Paradise” (Aug. 20, 2001). Reprinted by kind permission from Maclean’s magazine, Rogers Publishing Limited.
“The Laughing Heart” from Betting On The Muse: Poems & Stories by Charles Bukowski. Copyright © 1996 by Linda Lee Bukowski. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollinsPublishers.
Excerpt from “East Coker” from Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot. Copyright © 1940 by T.S. Eliot; copyright © renewed 1968 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, and Houghton Miffl in Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you” from The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks (HarperCollinsPublishers, Inc., 1995); copyright © 1995 by Coleman Barks. Reprinted by permission of Coleman Barks.
“Natural History” from Letters of E.B. White, Revised Edition, originally edited by Dorothy Lobrano Guth and revised and updated by Martha White. Copyright ©2006 by White Literary LLC. By permission of HarperCollinsPublishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007503568
Ebook Edition © October 2013 ISBN: 9780007503575
Version: 2014-12-18
The names and other identifying details of some major and minor characters have been changed to protect individual privacy and anonymity.
TO MY MOTHER,
for her courage and love
AND TO NICHOLAS,
for his infinite wisdom
Our excesses are the best clue we have to our own poverty, and our best way of concealing it from ourselves.
—ADAM PHILLIPS, BRITISH PSYCHOANALYST
the laughing heart
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank
submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the
darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you
chances.
know them, take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death
in life,
sometimes.
and the more often you
learn to do it,
the more light there will
be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have
it.
you are marvelous.
the gods wait to delight
in
you.
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