Saying that authors and alcohol go hand in hand is an exercise in gross understatement. Literature has long attracted boozing, smoking, and drug-addicted masterminds — clichés of self-destructive behavior that hint at the medium's ability to indulge emotional escapism. Jonathan Ames' newest book, a graphic novel not-so-subtly titled The Alcoholic, is a darkly comic addition to the existing canon and a haunting depiction of the inner demons that plague even the most successful artists.

The semi-autobiographical story charts Ames' nostalgic introspection during a series of painfully hungover flashbacks, as he pieces together his nearly liquidated life. The story is heartbreaking yet charming, following the author from the awkward drinking and purging of adolescence through sexual confusion, tattered relationships, and perpetual loneliness — all as he emulates drunken predecessors from Ernest Hemingway to Jack Kerouac. We see him experimenting with his sexuality, navel-gazing abroad, and flirting with rehab; these events may seem unexceptional in their standard-issue decadence, but Ames recounts them with alcohol-addled romanticism and well-paced concision. Jonathan A. — as he's dubbed in the novel — is a singular character, to be sure, but also recognizable as a tragicomic everyman; his story is a highly personalized self-portrait that simultaneously evokes every slouched bar buzzard in history.

Like a neurotic, more self-deprecating Charles Bukowski, Ames is a storyteller for a new generation of barroom and bedroom misadventures. Anyone who read his previous novel, Wake Up, Sir!, is familiar with Ames' skill for creating endearingly eloquent drunks, but with The Alcoholic, he reveals the troubled life behind the party. Written in collaboration with Dean Haspiel — who illustrated Michael Chabon's meta-comic The Escapist and worked with Harvey Pekar on American Splendor — the story relies heavily on its multimedia format. Ames' flawed, internal rumblings conjure a noirish squalor that is complemented by Haspiel's suggestive black-and-white illustrations. As a result, readers proceed through the book in a gut-wrenching hangover haze that's well worth the agony.

-Chelsea Bauch