Bill W., A Strange Salvation: A Biographical Novel
by Paul Hourihan
Category: Fiction

After Bill Wilson's supreme achievement in founding Alcoholics Anonymous, why would he have suffered a serious depression that lasted more than a decade? This book attempts to throw light on the question, one that has never been answered and rarely asked. In doing so, it involves the reader in many other themes of vital relevance to everyone -- not to those in recovery alone. This in-depth psychological study of the AA founder is generally based on the facts of Wilson's life, but not restricted to the literal truth: the prerogative of the novel. Some biographical events in Wilson's history have been passed over in favour of an intensive, original recreation of its key moments, from childhood to early middle-age, when the power of the depression was first felt. Chiefly a work of the imagination as this is, it is able to probe more deeply into the hidden life of its subject than non-fiction can do. According to the author, Bill W's depression may have been his salvation, and saved him from a worse fate. This book will introduce new readers to Bill Wilson -- "the greatest social architect" in Aldous Huxley's words of his century -- and one of the seminal voices of our age. It also provides a fresh look for those already familiar with his story.