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John Berryman
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Recovery: A Novel Kindle Edition

by John Berryman (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 27 ratings
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In the author's words, Recovery is a novel about "the disease called alcoholism, recognized by the American Medical Association only in 1964."

Previous page
  1. Print length
    267 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  5. Publication date
    January 1, 1973
  6. File size
    989 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"What he needed for his art had been supplied by his own person, by his mind, his wit."
—Saul Bellow, from the Foreword



"Recovery is a brilliantly written, masterful portrayal of man’s battle with himself for survival."—Chicago Sun-Times

"What distinguishes Recovery from many fine and powerful fictions about alcoholism are the steps it takes into allegory and art."—Los Angeles Times

"The powerful statement of a man who was there and never came back."—Kirkus Reviews



"But if Recovery is a fragment, it is a dazzling fragment, every bit as rich and macaberesquely comic as anything in Berryman’s better known poems."—The Independent

"Page after page, it displays humiliations and defeats. His novel, while written in prose, has the effect of a poem about the desolation of total selfpunishment. Sometimes, not even God and AA, acting in concert, can help with that."—National Post

About the Author


John Berryman (1914-1972) was an American poet and scholar. He spent much of his career at the University of Minnesota. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1964 for 77 Dream Songs and was the recipient of the National Book Award for His Toy, His Dream, His Rest. He is the author of several books of poetry and the biography Stephen Crane. Berryman died in 1972 after jumping to his death from the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis.

Saul Bellow (1915-2005) was an award-winning author whose works include The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, Mr. Sammler’s Planet, and Humboldt’s Gifts. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B007FU8BO0
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux (January 1, 1973)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 1, 1973
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 989 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 267 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 27 ratings

About the author

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John Berryman

John Berryman

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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
27 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

D. Kovacs
5.0 out of 5 stars Destroying, life-giving.
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2022
Verified Purchase
I’ve become fascinated with the mystery of addiction and sobriety over the past year. As an abiding lover of Berryman’s work, I finally took the plunge into this fragment of a novel.

It’s left me speechless and with a lump in my throat. I can’t believe he didn’t make it. What a uniquely brilliant intellect, a quirky sense of humor, a burgeoning spirituality. Most of all, this book made me realize that we ALL need to get sober, in some way. Lord have mercy on us all and especially on John Berryman, that amazing poet.
2 people found this helpful
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Joshua and Steph
4.0 out of 5 stars Depressing
Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2016
Verified Purchase
This story is about the author's time in an alcohol treatment facility is made all the more poignant knowing how his life ends.
3 people found this helpful
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John M. Talmadge, M.D.
5.0 out of 5 stars I discovered this book after hearing about it in a ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2017
Verified Purchase
I discovered this book after hearing about it in a seminar on alcoholism and addictions. Berryman was a fascinating person, and reading this book gives us a glimpse into what made him tick, and perhaps what destroyed his life. Definitely worth a look.
2 people found this helpful
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K. Reich
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2015
Verified Purchase
This is a great book that I've read a few times now. Berryman captures alcoholism eerily clearly.
3 people found this helpful
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Tor SR. Thidesen
4.0 out of 5 stars A Triumphant Swan Song and A Sublime Read
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2013
We all know the story of Berryman's alcoholism and depression. We all have heard the tales of this mans struggle and subversive attitude. A superb poet, a genius of poetry and one of the last great mad men.
We know that at the time when B was writing this, the pain got too much and the long awaited suicide finally descended. The novel was never finished.
One of the greater shames of literary history. What might have been.
Luckily there is enough of the text to marvel, and Bellow and the editors did a fine job tying together the loose ends of this art imitating life piece of autobiographical fiction.
The story of a mad professors recovery from addiction - or the attempt to.

There is enough here to discuss.
Berryman's poetry, as is, was always filled with numerous layers upon layers, a rich tapestry of information. The poetry itself always short and concise, but with a proverbial back room of references.
Vital too was Berrymans use of idiomatic, or vernacular, speech. The sound of the street - slang, error, turn of phrase.

What then happens when such a poet writes a novel?
I cannot speak in great literary detail, I know next to nothing about the subject, but what I know is this:
The language is close to perfect.
Berryman completely changes gears and inhabits the speech of the novelist. Sure, there are plenty of interesting puns and word play here, sure there is poetry in some of the lines, but mostly Berryman knows how it works and tells us the story in a straight forward way.
You wouldn't think this man was a poet - in a good way, meaning he never falls to temptation to get too "flowery" or "poetic."
All prose should have _some_ poetry to it, especially if the main character is educated or versed in literature.
But it never gets in the way.

Berryman paints a perfect picture of addiction and recovery. He's created a sublime protagonist that resembles Berryman enough to get the point. We love this hate-filled, depressed characters because we know who he really is: Berryman.
We get an insight into the workings of recovery while getting an insight into why Berryman hated the very system.
Why it works and doesn't.

Addiction, especially alcohol, is an addiction everyone despises, including the addict. The main character sees his own problem, and attempts to use the system to better himself.
Of course, it's not an easy road.
The protagonist: "Berryman". The antagonist: Alcoholism.

There is lost love, there is loneliness, there is struggle and there is humour.

This is a great book if you either love Berryman enough to attempt this last folly, or if you are in recovery or should be.
There is no preaching, no moral here. Just the internal struggle brought within hospital walls. These walls become the very essence of loneliness and the life line, the phone booths in the hospital corridors, the contact with other people.

I highly recommend this book. Like other reviewers have said, it's not an easy read. But worth it.
10 people found this helpful
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M. Bromberg
5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing, self-lacerating, hopeful novel of victory over addiction
Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2004
John Berryman was working on "Recovery" when he died, and in these pages there is hope of some ultimate victory over addiction. In the character of Alan Severance is the thinly-veiled personality of the poet himself, self-deprecating and perfectionist, attempting to overcome despair in a hospitalized addict's routine of recognition and confrontation. It is by no means an uplifting triumph to acknowledge that he got this far in the struggle -- but that he got this far, and then despaired, says much about the power of alcohol to ruin even the power of hope. This novel will change any romantic notions the reader may have about art and the role of drugs in the life of any artist.
23 people found this helpful
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