Drinking Life

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.

"Maybe sinking a few drinks per diem isn't the world's best idea, but when a wizened newspaper reporter like Hamill...owns up to it and the troubles it begets, it makes great, gritty copy. Drink up!" Booklist

"Hamill tells of watering holes favored by staffers...his entry into the celebrity life with Shirley MacLaine; travels in Mexico, Spain, and elsewhere; and of his putting down the glass forever on New Year's Eve 1972, doing it alone and without AA." Kirkus Reviews

This bestselling memoir from a seasoned New York City reporter is "a vivid report of a journey to the edge of self-destruction" (New York Times).
As a child during the Depression and World War II, Pete Hamill learned early that drinking was an essential part of being a man, inseparable from the rituals of celebration, mourning, friendship, romance, and religion. Only later did he discover its ability to destroy any writer's most valuable tools: clarity, consciousness, memory.
In A Drinking Life, Hamill explains how alcohol slowly became a part of his life, and how he ultimately left it behind. Along the way, he summons the mood of an America that is gone forever, with the bittersweet fondness of a lifelong New Yorker.

"Magnificent. A Drinking Life is about growing up and growing old, working and trying to work, within the culture of drink." --Boston Globe

20 years after his last drink Pete Hamill looks back on his early life. As a child during the depression and World War II he learnt that drinking was to be an essential part of being a man, it was only later he discovered its ability to destroy lives.

Pete Hamill is a novelist, journalist, editor, and screenwriter. He has served as editor-in-chief of both the New York Post and the New York Daily News. He has published eight novels, including the best-selling Snow in August, as well as the memoir A Drinking Life.