Shonna Milliken Humphrey

Authors of
Gin (Bloomsbury, 2020)

Shonna Milliken Humphrey is the Maine-based author of the novel Show Me Good Land and memoir Dirt Roads and Diner Pie. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Salon, and Down East magazine. She played a key role in the posthumous publication of The Afterlife of Kenzaburo Tsuruda written by Elisabeth Wilkins Lombardo, and for two years, she was a food writer for The Maine Sunday Telegram.

Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / shonnahumphrey.com / Represented by Stephany Evans

Gin (Object Lessons) is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Gin tastes like Christmas to some and rotten pine chips to others, but nearly everyone familiar with the spirit holds immediate gin nostalgia. Although early medical textbooks treated it as a healing agent, early alchemists (as well as their critics) claimed gin's base was a path to immortality-and also Satan's tool. In more recent times, the gin trade consolidated the commercial and political power of nations and prompted a social campaign against women. Gin has been used successfully as a defense for murder; blamed for massive unrest in 18th-century England; and advertised for as an abortifacient.

From its harshest proto-gin distillation days to the current smooth craft models, gin plays a powerful cultural role in film, music, and literature-one that is arguably older, broader, and more complex than any other spirit. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Praise

“In this expansive volume, Shonna Milliken Humphrey traces the history of gin, exploring the ways it’s been imbibed and the other uses it’s had throughout human history ― some of which may surprise you.”
—Inside Hook

“The book is far from a staid account – strange history, trivia, recipes and anecdotes abound, and Humphrey weaves autobiographical episodes throughout, making for an engaging read.” ―Portland Press Herald

“I loved this book even more than I love gin, which is saying a lot. William Blake found a world in a grain of sand, but here Shonna Milliken Humphrey finds the whole universe in a juniper berry. By turns erudite and hilarious, thoughtful and provocative, Shonna shows us the history of the spirit, and-at times-her own heart. One of the most delightful books I've ever read.”
―Jennifer Finney Boylan, Author of Good Boy and She's Not There