Caroline Knapp

Diagnoses

Personal

Vocation

Traits

Family

American writer, the author of "Drinking, A Love Story," published by Dial Press May 1996 and on the best-seller list two months later, her personal story about years of being a closet alcoholic. The Cambridge raised daughter of a psychiatrist and an artist, she was raised with privilege and intellect. She never heard her parents fight and never heard them say I love you. Her dad died in 1992 and her mom a year later. Caroline was anorexic through much of her 20's, a 5' 4" blonde. At about 13 or 14, she had her first drink, feeling very daring and smart. She graduated from Brown magna cum laude and went to work as a journalist, writing about organisms and sun-tans and being a grown-up. Obsessively neat and organized, she called herself the queen of lists. For years, Caroline was involved with two different men in a romantic life that was tormented, surreptitious and complicated. Finally, in 2/20/1994, she checked into a rehab center. Four months later she felt able to meet life free of her drug-of-choice. She bought a new house in which she has never taken a bottle and goes to AA three-four times a week. When she was diagnosed with lung cancer, she married her longtime companion, photographer Mark Morelli but died shortly after, on June 3, 2002, Cambridge, MA. Link to Wikipedia biography