Author Olivia Laing, whose nonfiction account of writers and drinking, "The Trip to Echo Spring," was widely reviewed, has canceled her book tour. Laing was scheduled to appear at Common Good Books this Thursday. Her book traces the lives of six male writers--John Cheever, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, John Berryman, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Tennessee Williams, and the effect alcohol had on their output, lives, and prose.

Laing's publicist said today that Laing had suffered a medical emergency and had undergone emergency surgery while on tour in Portland, Ore. At first doctors thought she could continue the tour, but later they suggested it would be better for her to return home and recuperate.

"All involved (especially Olivia) are terribly disappointed," her publicist said in an e-mail. We are wishing Laing a speedy recovery and hope she can come to Minnesota some time in future--perhaps when it's not eleven degrees below zero.

Here's the Star Tribune's review of her book.