Peter Sellers, the cheeky proprietor of the excellent used- and rare-book shop Sellers and Newel in Toronto.Cal O’Shaughnessy/Supplied
A heavy head, a twisted gut, the keen sense of regret – a hangover is generally understood as the opposite of a good time. But even in its utter not-funness there can be something undeniably funny about the condition, especially in the hands of an excellent writer.
Enter The Last Martini: A Hangover Bedside Companion, featuring many centuries worth of excerpted scenes and quips regarding the proverbial dog that bites you. The excerpts were compiled by Peter Sellers, the cheeky proprietor of the excellent used- and rare-book shop Sellers and Newel. Browsing in the Toronto store last month, Sellers, who also is an award-winning crime-fiction writer, disclosed the book was practically flying off the shelves. “Probably because I didn’t write it,” he joked. On a more recent visit, Sellers invited The Globe into the store’s crowded basement, where he nestled two chairs in among the many boxes and overflowing shelves, to discuss The Last Martini.
What do you think it is about the hangover that leads to a literary treatment?
It can be really funny. It’s comical from a distance, but of course the closer you get to it, the worse it becomes. And then in some cases, it’s not funny at all. There’s excerpts in the book from Last Exit to Brooklyn and The Last Weekend and books like that where it really isn’t funny. And we all know it ain’t funny, especially if it’s a chronic thing. But either way there’s lots of opportunity for vivid description.
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Do you feel like there’s a period of time that speaks to the hangover most directly? You’ve included lots of work written just before and after Prohibition.
Well, the title comes from a line in the film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man. The book and the movie are both from the early 1930s, and these people are just drunk all the time, just perpetually drinking and living the life. Times were definitely, undoubtedly more frivolous back then.
There’s a whole section on working through one’s hangover, and you have a great bit from Ernest Hemingway about how Spaniards start the day late because they’re up late, and how it’s not the same as clocking in early after having been out all night. Is there a component of pride to being hungover?
Definitely. Particularly when you were talking about the older stuff – this applies obviously to the mid-century male writers – there’s definitely a macho thing to it. When I was in the ad business in the 1980s, I knew guys who’d wake up on the boardroom floor, get up, wash their faces and go into their offices and go back to work. The attitudes have changed so radically now.
When did you begin compiling excerpts for the book?
I started working on The Last Martini in the early 1980s. I was noticing these descriptions of hangovers in the books I was reading. And then at some point it occurred to me that there was so much of this stuff, it would be a great book. I was working on it with my friend Rob Milling, who did a lot of the research into the early historical stuff, going back to Sumerian times and so on. We put a proposal together and it went out and got summarily rejected from some significant publishers around town.
You could have kept adding to your hangover notebook privately forever. What made you think that other people need a compendium of hangovers?
I just had a notion it might sell, and I thought it was fun. After a while it did become exactly what you’re talking about, just something I had in a box. Until last year, when I happened to mention it to Howard Aster, the publisher at Mosaic Press. Next thing I know, he’s off at the book fair in Frankfurt, talking it up to people.
Was it over time that you became more interested in hangovers, or was there one in particular that made you want to understand and commiserate with these writers?
No, I think anybody who gets a lot of hangovers is not really particularly wise in that regard. I started in the ad business in 1980 and we were drinking all the time. You’d go for lunch, you’d have five drinks and you’d go back to work and think you were being productive. In my mid-30s, I just quit. For about 12 years. Then I went to England and couldn’t see myself ordering club soda in the pub. So I ordered a drink and drank for another 10 years. But I stopped again, about nine years ago now.
So you were going through some of your worst hangovers when you first started working on this book.
Yeah, I was. I guess maybe that’s why the excerpts were striking me. I mean, it never really left me. The book was always in my head somewhere. The last hangover I had was that morning, nine years ago and I know later that day, I was thinking, “Man, I could use some Scotch.” That was the last hangover I had, but I don’t really remember it at all.
The last hangover is probably less memorable than the last martini.
Right. But still, it is hilarious to observe. Certain people will read this book and recognize things in the most comical or the most bleak descriptions. You’re gonna say, “Oh, yeah. I remember a day like that.” Or, “I vaguely remember a day like that.”
Has revisiting your younger self – going back over 30 years to when you first thought to compile these pieces – been a cause for reflection?
Mostly what I reflect upon as I sell many, many copies of this book is remembering the publishers who said, “No, we have no idea how to sell this.” Because I know how to sell it. You put it in the window and it goes.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
