Barbara Holland, 1933–2010

The writer who celebrated her vices

Barbara Holland thought the American obsession with health and fitness was taking the fun out of life. “I’m in favor of a little more sociability, a little more merriment, maybe even a little more singing and dancing,” she told an interviewer after the publication of her 15th and final book, The Joy of Drinking, published just before Mother’s Day, 2007. “I was kind of hoping,” she said, “people would buy it for their mothers.”

Holland, who died this week of lung cancer at age 77, had a knack for making indulgence and excess look reasonable. Her essays, which “sang the simple pleasures of drinking martinis, cursing, and eating fatty foods,” struck a chord with readers, said The New York Times. Her fans kept an earlier book, Endangered Pleasures—a witty paean to a wide range of bad habits—in print for more than 15 years. But she was more than an advocate for vice. Her subjects ranged from her unhappy childhood in a Washington, D.C., suburb to her own “unsparingly” described abortion to the foibles of American presidents.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us