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A Drinking Life: A Memoir, by Pete Hamill

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From the Back Cover

Rugged prose and a rare attention to telling detail have long distinguished Pete Hamill's unique brand of journalism and his universally well received fiction. Twenty years after his last drink, he examines the years he spent as a full-time member of the drinking culture. The result is A Drinking Life, a stirring and exhilarating memoir float is his most personal writing to date. The eldest son of Irish immigrants, Hamill learned from his Brooklyn upbringing during the Depression and World War II that drinking was an essential part of being a man; he only had to accompany his father up the street to the warm, amber-colored world of Gallagher's bar to see that drinking was what men did. It played a crucial role in mourning the death of relatives or the loss of a job, in celebrations of all kinds, even in religion. In the navy and the world of newspapers, he learned that bonds of friendship, romance, and professional camaraderie were sealed with drink. It was later that he discovered that drink had the power to destroy those very bonds and corrode any writer's most valuable tools: clarity, consciousness, memory. It was almost too late when he left drinking behind forever. Neither sentimental nor self-righteous, this is a seasoned writer's vivid portrait of the first four decades of his life and the slow, steady way that alcohol became an essential part of that life. Along the way, he summons the mood of a time and a place gone forever, with the bittersweet fondness of a lifetime New Yorker. It is his best work yet.

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About the Author

Pete Hamill is a novelist, essayist and journalist whose career has endured for more than forty years. He was born in Brooklyn, N. Y. in 1935, the oldest of seven children of immigrants from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He attended Catholic schools as a child. He left school at 16 to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a sheetmetal worker, and then went on to the United States Navy. While serving in the Navy, he completed his high school education. Then, using the educational benefits of the G.I. Bill of Rights, he attended Mexico City College in 1956-1957, studying painting and writing, and later went to Pratt Institute. For several years, he worked as a graphic designer. Then in 1960, he went to work as a reporter for the New York Post. A long career in journalism followed. He has been a columnist for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and New York Newsday, the Village Voice, New York magazine and Esquire. He has served as editor-in-chief of both the Post and the Daily News.. As a journalist, he has covered wars in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Lebanon and Northern Ireland, and has lived for extended periods in Mexico City, Dublin, Barcelona, San Juan and Rome. From his base in New York he has also covered murders, fires, World Series, championship fights and the great domestic disturbances of the 1960s, and has written extensively on art, jazz, immigration and politics. He witnessed the events of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath and wrote about them for the Daily News. At the same time, Hamill has written much fiction, including movie and TV scripts. He has published nine novels and two collections of short stories. His 1997 novel, Snow in August, was on the New York Times bestseller list for four months. His memoir, A Drinking Life, was on the same New York Times list for 13 weeks. He has published two collections of his journalism (Irrational Ravings and Piecework), an extended essay on journalism called News Is A Verb, a book about the relationship of tools to art, a biographical essay called Why Sinatra Matters, dealing with the music of the late singer and the social forces that made his work unique. In 1999, Harry N. Abrams published his acclaimed book on the Mexican painter Diego Rivera. His latest novel, Forever, was published by Little, Brown in January 2003 and became a New York Times bestseller. In 2004, he published “Downtown: My Manhattan”, a non-fiction account of his love affair with New York and received much critical acclaim. Hamill is the father of two daughters, and has a seven-year-old grandson. He is married to the Japanese journalist, Fukiko Aoki, and they divide their time between New York City and Cuernavaca, Mexico. He is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University and is writing a new novel.

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Product details

Paperback: 265 pages

Publisher: Back Bay Books (April 1, 1995)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0316341029

ISBN-13: 978-0316341028

Product Dimensions:

5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.2 out of 5 stars

125 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#47,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Love this book! Pete Hammil's descriptions of Irish life in Brooklyn during WWII, post-war and the 50s, and Greenwich Village in the 60s is spot on, reflecting my own parents' upbringing and memorable visits to my aunts and uncles during those years. Hammill was a very admired columnist and role model for aspiring journalists in NYC in the late seventies and eighties, and this honest portrayal of the man behind the image is a true delight.

This is a story about a very textured life, lived fully and successfully, with a persistent and painful subtext of alcohol. I am in awe of people who achieve much in life in spite of drinking quantities of alcohol that would have disabled me completely - Pete Hamill is one of these people. As Hamill states in the book, after he finally quit drinking, he never wanted to moralize or preach about his decision to quit drinking. This attitude is informs the book, which is more a story of his life & times and his improbable path to writing that almost parenthetically happens to include a lot of drinking. One of the book's contributions to the literature of alcohol addiction is Hamill's depiction of the way in which drinking was so densely woven into the world in which he grew up. Finally, Hamill did the unthinkable and broke free.

I am a recovering alcoholic with ten years of sobriety, who loves to read, entering the minds and lives of kindred spirits. Pete Hamill is definitely a kindred spirit. We are close in age and experiences, so I loved all of the cultural and historical references. I would so enjoy a long chat with him!

I guess I had heard of Pete Hamill when "NYC old timers" were referenced. However, it was when reading "A Drinking Life" by Caroline Knapp did I feel compelled to seek out this book. I understand other reviwers' disappointment that Hamill's memoir wasn't at all like Caroline Knapp's hard-core and raw experience with alcohol addicition. To be fair, Hamill's letter in the very beginning of the book primes you for his life story and the eventual discovery that his drinking had been riding side-saddle with him for as long as he could remember. It sure helped me understand how drinking can cloak itself in merriment and celebration, but that its long-term effects can (and will) erode and destroy pretty much everything in its path. And it helps shed light on why, culturally, we equate the Irish with big-time drinking. I also appreciated the history lesson you receive through the eyes of a young boy. It was easy to visualize Hamill's world with his intimate descriptions of the places he lived and the characters who helped shape his life.Because of Hamill's ambitious undertaking with this memoir, I felt the book was uneven at times. In my mind, more minor anecdotes received a larger spotlight with more detail, while more critical turning points in his life faded out as a sub-chapter was coming to a close.Overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it. Not only is Pete Hamill a living NYC legend, he has lived a legendary life that is worth taking in.

Oh, the places Hamill will take you in this gritty, unflinchingly honest look at a fascinating interior life. Growing up in a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn, complete with cockroaches, Pete slowly acquires an understanding of what it means to be an Irish-American. Around age 8, his father, Billy, walked him to Gallagher's, the corner saloon, where young Pete got his first introduction to the camaraderie of the neighborhood bar. There he witnessed his father's serenading of the crowd, after loosening himself up with booze. It was an initiation that would influence Pete for many years to come. Throughout the book, Hamill notes the persistent, persuasive messages that our society gives, that drinking is an essential social lubricant. Be it a wedding, a funeral, the beginning of a job, or ending of one, joining the Navy, going on leave or vacation, on and on, drinking was invited, expected, nearly demanded. The book provides great insights into the times. Hamill writes, "We lived to the rhythms of the war (WWII). Before the War, During the War, After the War." Hamill's forays into the world of art are enlightening. While taking a drawing class, he becomes enamored of a nude model, and they become involved. His loves, travels, thoughts on religion and family kept me entranced, as well as his inevitable slide into an alcohol-induced moral deterioration. The surprising aspect here, was Hamill's moment of clarity, when he realized he had a choice, that he could disrupt the cycle of the "Irish-curse". We cheer for him as he strives to make a sober life for himself. An interesting life, told by a great writer.

A Drinking Life is really an autobiographical memoir. Hamill is the son of an Irish immigrant and finds that the culture of drink is part of the culture of being a man. However, he also watched his father, who was a fall down alcoholic through his life growing up, and thus recalled the pain it imposed on his family's life.In the course of telling his story, Hamill reveals that he was a person who was constantly going from place to place, all over the world. What exactly he is searching for, he never really reveals. But eventually, he does come to grips with the fact that the Drinking Life is detrimental to his continued existence.One of his greatest lines in the entire book is in his introduction when he states, "But life doesn't get easier when you walk away from the culture of drink; you simply live it with greater lucidity." The book is a fine example of someone who eventually realizes that life is "better" if not easier, without his addiction. The book is an inspiring story and I recommend it to all observers of social behavior.

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