A strange memoir - he keeps on claiming he is not an alcoholic as he drinks huge amounts of liquor. Hardly an effective Prohibition tract, since his stories of drunken adventure in his youth (and he started drinking when he was *very* young) are more exciting than cautionary. Some of this volume also went into his autobiographic novel "Martin Eden".

Some stretches, like the last 25 pages, are now near unreadable - inflated prose, meandering about late 19th C Materialist/Pessimist philosophy, edged w/ a bit of Social Darwinism.

But, when he sticks to the story of his life, his life of drinking and adventure (he does not need alcohol or a drink - honest! It reminds me of Billie Holiday writing "The Lady Sings the Blues" - telling us how she kicked heroin, and using it the whole time she wrote the book.) the memoir keeps the reader's interest.