Thoughts on Susan Cheever's Latest Book

I just finished Susan Cheever's bio of Bill Wilson and it seems he was, in fact, a sexaholic and much of the writing in the two sacred texts of AA were written from his subjective (read~ guilt-ridden) POV on this problem. Some of the more entertaining items I came across in the book were discovering BW wanted to name the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, The Bill Wilson Movement and that he spent three years experimenting with LSD in the late 50's as a possible cure for his smoking. Oh, here's another good one, the reason it's refered to as the BIG BOOK is because Wilson was disappointed that his colleagues wouldn't allow him to publish the thing in the original monsterously long draft it was, so Wilson got them to use the thickest paper they could afford and had 'em use especially large type. He started refering to it as the BIG BOOK in order to compensate for what he perceived as a slight. In fairness, it seems he came to see the wisdom of all these group decisions but who knows, this is all Cheever's interpretation and then my interpretation of her's to boot. Iowa City writer, Mary Allen (The Rooms of Heaven) might be comforted to learn that Wilson and his pals were very into the Quiji (sp?), automatic writing and communicating with the dead. Cheever says Wilson once saw spirits in the kitchen of his house in Vermont.

All in all, it's an entertaining book and carries a strong message about never making any one person or method of self-betterment the be all and end all. Cheever's focus on class is annoying and tiresome esp. when she tries to justify it by saying it was Wilson who was obsessed by issues of money and class. There is not much evidence of that in anything she reveals about her subject. Ultimately, the reader comes to know a very sad guy. Bill suffered from long and debilitating depressions, cried around almost everyone, was a slave to his sexual impulses, nicotine and was driven into exile by the fame he once desperately sought. He abandoned his own program for a very long time and it's not entirely clear if he ever truely came back into the fold near the end of his life. Despite these things, it seems he never stopped giving to others in need and was always willing to pull himself together when he was needed. That sort of generosity and willingness to question even the program he had a huge hand in giving birth to is what I call "way cool".