Novel: Rummies

Overview
Peter Benchley's Rummies follows a successful advertising executive who is sent to a rehabilitation clinic to overcome his alcoholism. The novel moves between the antiseptic routines of inpatient treatment and the flashbacks, nightmares, and day-to-day temptations that bedevil someone trying to rebuild a life that once seemed secure. Benchley turns his attention from the sea and suspense to the quieter, more insistent drama of addiction, recovery, and the slow, often messy work of starting over.
Rummies is driven less by plot twists than by the emotional interior of its central character and the ensemble of fellow patients and caregivers he meets. The story examines how a high-functioning career and outward success can mask inner disintegration, and how recovery demands the dismantling of denial, the acceptance of help, and the courage to face personal and professional consequences.

Plot
The narrative opens with the protagonist's admission to a rehab clinic after a crisis that makes continued drinking untenable. Inside the clinic he is confronted with a regime of group therapy, one-on-one counseling, and enforced sobriety that strips away excuses and routines. Much of the novel's momentum comes from the protagonist's efforts to integrate lessons learned in treatment with the pressures waiting for him outside: clients to placate, campaigns to shepherd, and relationships strained by years of neglect.
Interwoven with the daily life of the clinic are scenes that detail the protagonist's past: career triumphs, late-night revelries, fractured friendships, and the small betrayals that cumulatively led to his breakdown. As he makes tentative progress, he forms bonds with other patients whose own stories of dependency and recovery broaden his perspective and test his resolve. Benchley charts both moments of hope and the pull of relapse, portraying recovery as a sequence of challenges rather than a single victory.

Characters
The protagonist is depicted as capable and charismatic but hollowed out by reliance on alcohol. He is not a caricature of self-destruction; he is someone whose professional skill enabled denial and whose charisma allowed dysfunction to be overlooked. The novel populates the clinic with a cast of vivid secondary characters: fellow "rummies" whose different backgrounds and addictions illuminate the many shapes dependency can take, therapists who blend tough love with empathy, and outside figures, family members, colleagues, ex-lovers, who complicate the return to ordinary life.
Benchley gives space to the small interactions that feel authentic in a treatment setting: awkward meals, intimate confessions in late-night meetings, the competitiveness and camaraderie among patients. These interactions provide the novel's emotional core and show how recovery often depends as much on new, honest relationships as on formal therapy.

Themes and style
Rummies explores themes of denial, responsibility, and the cost of professional achievement when personal life is neglected. Benchley treats addiction with compassion and realism, resisting melodrama in favor of direct, unsentimental prose. His background in portraying pressure-cooker environments serves him well; the advertising world's emphasis on image and persuasion contrasts sharply with the clinic's demand for honesty and surrender.
The book emphasizes that recovery is ongoing: the protagonist learns that restoring a career and repairing relationships require more than stopped drinking, they demand rebuilding trust, accepting vulnerability, and making hard choices about priorities. Benchley's tone is humane and observant, balancing moments of bleakness with dry, sometimes ironic humor, and leaving readers with a sober portrait of the slow, uncertain work of starting again.