In 1973, a celebrated writer reportedly knocked on a new colleague’s door and held out a glass. “Pardon me,” he said by way of introduction. “I’m John Cheever. Could I borrow some scotch?” Raymond Carver did not share Cheever’s authorial renown at that time—that would come later. And he did not have scotch. He had only Smirnoff. In her 2013 book about writers and drinking , the British critic Olivia Laing describes how Cheever and Carver would drive to a nearby liquor store, stock up, and take