Edinburgh University Press Precarity, Alcohol and Contemporary British and Irish Literature

Shows how contemporary literature uses representations of alcohol to examine socio-economic insecurity Argues that various dimensions of precarity – including risk, time, gender, and collective identity – are examined through literary depictions of drinking and sobriety Proposes that contemporary theorisations of precarity can be developed through attending to contemporary literature and, especially, its treatment of alcohol Analyses a wide range of contemporary literary texts from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, some of which have not yet been the focus of significant scholarly attention Precarity is the condition of human vulnerability that is experienced with new intensity due to cuts to the welfare state and the insecurity of contemporary work. In contemporary literature from Britain and Ireland, precarity is frequently explored in a surprising way: through depictions of alcohol. Precarity, Alcohol and Contemporary British and Irish Literature reveals how contemporary writing connects socio-economic insecurity and drinking. In particular, the book argues that representations of drinking places are used to examine the possibility of forming new precarious social collectives, while depictions of the mess and bodily waste of heavy drinking reflect on the gendering of work in neoliberalism. It shows that the uncontrollable nature of risk in precarity, and its lost dreams of the future, come to be explored through narrative fiction about alcohol, and explains how sobriety memoirs explore vulnerable interconnectedness.