James' World 2

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Three years ago, as the pandemic was loosening its grip on the world, and as I started to recover from the aftereffects of a botched childhood circumcision that had returned to haunt me in middle age, I rediscovered the bottomless pleasure of a cold dry Martini. My emergence from both a global and personal health crisis plunged me into a daily Saturnalia. As restaurants reopened, I unhinged my jaw and left it open: suadero tacos dripping with lard; twisted knobs of dough crowning gigantic Georgian khinkali dumplings; the mutton chop at Keens Steakhouse that is made for sharing in theory, but not in practice—all fell victim to my appetites. And to help the food go down easy, I also consumed gallons of Willamette Valley pinot noir and hyper-local artisanal ales. Soon enough, my A1C levels were in the prediabetic range and I knew that action had to be taken.

Sugar was the problem, and while I have always been an aficionado of the blood-sugar-lowering wonder drug metformin, I decided to make a life-style change as well. I decided to start drinking lots of Martinis. Martinis, I reasoned, contain far less sugar than beer or wine. Also, Martinis make you happier faster and so you do not need to drink as many of them. There is a point in my writing day when a Martini appears before my eyes and I have to resist putting it in the hands of my characters. In my last published novel, many Gibsons, a relative of the Martini, were enjoyed by nearly all my protagonists as they faced lifetimes of regrets and bouts of late-fortysomething ennui. Martinis often appear in other forms of art as symbols of joy and closure. The last scene of “Poor Things,” a stylized and sybaritic film if ever there was one, ends with the sumptuously dressed characters drinking a bevy of Martinis.

But not all has been well in Martini land. For years, doctors have been telling us that a glass or two of wine at dinner is good for our health. So how bad could two relatively sugar-free Martinis be? Recently, however, doctors changed their minds. A flurry of articles descended from Mount Hippocrates declaring that the healthiest choice was zero alcohol.

Zero alcohol! A glass of water with our salad. A splash of cucumber juice after our workout. The more articles I read, the angrier I became. Modern Americans are supposed to submit to all the indignities of late capitalism: the endless work hours, the 9 P.M. e-mails from our superiors, software that monitors our every keystroke. And then we’re not even supposed to have a drink in the middle of this psychic carnage? (Perhaps that drink would interfere with our productivity.) I understand that most doctors want us only to stay healthy, but the Rx on their prescription pads seems to read “Endless suffering endured daily; refill until death.” No, I, for one, would not submit. Let the younger folks medicate with their Adderall to stay up and their benzos to come down. In the meantime, I would reach for my gin and my vermouth and one V-shaped glass to contain them all. I would dedicate myself to the cult of the Martini.

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