An interview with publishing veteran Ed Breslin, author of Drinking with Miss Dutchie, which is being published by St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne Books.
PW: How would you categorize your book. Is it a memoir? A recovery book? Or a dog book? Who is its audience, and who might benefit from reading it?
EB: The book is all three -- an amalgam. It’s “my story,” to be simplistic, and that combines elements of all three. I would hope it appeals to readers of memoirs, of recovery books, and of dog books. I’d like to think it could point out a beneficial option to people in trouble with addiction, but I’m no preacher or reformer or anything like that. As the Greeks say, “Wine has drowned more men than the sea,” and probably will continue to do so. Besides, used in moderation alcohol isn’t the problem. Alcoholism is. If you’re in the unlucky gene pool that winds up with it, you’re not reprehensible for having it but you’re responsible for doing something about it before it does you or some innocent third party harm. If the book helps even one person it’s worth writing it to me. There’s an old Jewish saying, “He who saves even one life saves all mankind.” I really do hope my book helps someone.
PW: Did you ever imagine you’d end up writing a book about a dog that helped you stop drinking?
EB: Ed Breslin: It still amazes me that all of this happened. I was not even remotely a dog person prior to Miss Dutchie coming into my life. Yet now, looking back, aside from meeting and falling in love with my wife Lynn, having had Miss Dutchie in my life is the most powerful thing that ever happened to me.
PW: Was writing such an intense and personal book cathartic for you? Was it compulsive?
EB: Yes on both counts. After Dutchie died I felt bereft. The sense of loss drove me to distraction. I feared it was affecting my performance as a publishing professional. I also feared another close encounter with clinical depression. I didn’t know what to do. Then I talked to a close friend in AA and he advised me, when I said I felt guilty for ever having disappointed Dutchie with my drinking, especially for having once taken her to a rough and tumble North Philly bar, to write her what they call in AA an “amends.” That is, to write an apology and a testament to her, a eulogy, telling her what she’d meant to me. So I sat down and that’s what I did. I wanted the book to have the first person intimacy and immediacy of a journal or diary. When I finished I was purged and at rest, for the first time since she died.
PW: How much credit do you give to Dutchie in overcoming your addiction?
EB: I wouldn’t be around to answer that question if it weren’t for my wife Lynn and my four psychotherapists. Lynn had for years pointed out to me the dangers of heavy drinking, as potential alcoholics prefer to categorize—and rationalize—their addiction. I had listened, I had abstained, I had backslid. Then my drinking got worse and Lynn urged me to try AA. Eventually that became magnificent, as did Dutchie, both of them showing me every day that you could have a good time sober, something I’d overlooked. I was this driven workaholic with a very narrow focus in life who lost perspective on what was important and forfeited control to drinking. Then I was fascinated—and eventually transfixed—by this wonderful dog’s buoyant spirit and example. Her infinite love of life I found infectious. All four factors coalesced—my wife, my therapists, AA, and my dog—and I managed to stop drinking. Dutchie’s unconditional love and nonverbal, instinctual example, combined with her disapproval when I consumed alcohol, got to me in a very profound way. She put the final touch, the clincher, on my surrender, and my survival.
PW: What influence has working in publishing had on your career as a writer?
EB: A salutary one. I’m astonished almost every day by the intellectual prowess and cultural depth I’ve found in so many publishing people. Working in publishing also exposed me constantly to writers, and from them I learned a tremendous amount. I feel about them the way Picasso felt about painters—that anyone who had the gumption to hang a painting on the wall had his respect ipso facto. Working as an editor and publisher for two decades was the equivalent of attending a great graduate school; it was and is a fabulous form of continuing education. Truman Capote and Robert Stone both pointed out in separate interviews how practical, hands-on experience in publishing is invaluable for aspiring writers.
