A Drinking Life

Author: Pete Hamill
Category: General
ISBN: 9780316341028
Format : Paperback
Publisher : Back Bay Books

Min Price: 1.00 Max Price: 10.86

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.

A Drinking Life ( ISBN 9780316341028 )

Turn of the Century

Camden, DE, U.S.A.
Price : 6 USD
From Publishers Weekly Hamill's autobiography entails his long odyssey to sobriety. This is not a jeremiad condemning drink, however, but a thoughtful, funny, street-smart reflection on its consequences. To understand Hamill ( Loving Women ), one must know his immigrant parents: Anne, gentle and fair; Billy, one-legged and alcoholic. The first offspring of this union--Republicans in Belfast, Democrats in Brooklyn--Hamill has a special gift for relating the events of his childhood. He recreates a time extinct, a Brooklyn of trolley cars, Dodgers, pails of beer and pals like No Toes Nocera. He recalls such adventures as the Dodgers' 1941 pennant and viewing the liner Normandie lying on its side in the Hudson River. We partake in the glory of V-J day and learn what life in Hamill's neighborhood was centered on: "Part of being a man was to drink." Puberty hits him and booze helps him to overcome his sexual shyness. But Hamill's childhood ended early. After dropping out of high school he lived on his own, working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and drinking with his workmates. Wanting more, he studied art, soon meeting a nude model named Laura who was a lot different from the neighborhood girls, those "noble defenders of the holy hymen." And escape was always on Hamill's mind. First it was the Navy, then Mexico, but it was always the same--drinking nights which today he can't remember. There were fist-fights and jail time in Mexico and he learned that "drinking could be a huge fuck you to Authority." Back home with a job at the New York Post , he mastered his trade at the Page One bar every morning, drinking with other reporters. Much time was spent in saloons away from his wife and two daughters and he remembers the taunts of his childhood, "Your old man's an Irish drunk!" Then one New Year's Eve 20 years ago he noticed all the drunkenness and had his last vodka. When asked why, he said, "I have no talent for it." It may be the only talent Hamill lacks. Author tour. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Library Journal Readers expecting a gossipy "How I became a newspaper man" autobiography won't find it in reporter-novelist Hamill's first nonfiction book. The title notwithstanding, this is also no powerful Days of Wine and Roses memoir. Hamill devotes many pages to an almost year-by-year account of his Depression and World War II Brooklyn childhood. The son of Irish immigrants, Hamill soon learns about the "culture of drinking" from his alcoholic father. Hamill at first seeks escape through pulp fiction and. read more --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A Drinking Life ( ISBN 9780316341028 )

Dons Bookstore

Albuquerque, NM, U.S.A.
Price : 6 USD
"This book tells the story of the way one human being became aware of alcohol, embraced it, struggled with it, was hurt by it, and finally left it behind. The tale has no hero. The culture of drink endures because it offers so many rewards: confidence for the shy, clarity for the uncertain, solace to the wounded and lonely, and above all, the elusive promises of friendship and love. From almost the beginning of awareness, drinking was a part of my life; there is no way that I could tell the story of the drinking without telling the story of the life. Much of that story was wonderful. In the snug darkness of saloons, I learned much about being human and about mastering a craft. I had, as they say, a million laughs. But those grand times also caused great moral, physical, or psychological damage to myself and others. Some of that harm was probably permanent. There is little to be done now but take responsibility. No man's past can be changed; it's a fact, like red hair. More than twenty years have gone by since I stopped drinking. My father died at eighty; my mother lives on. I'm happily married to a wonderful woman and work even harder than I did when young. But life doesn't get easier when you walk away from the culture of drink; you simply live it with greater lucidity. I started writing this book when some of my friends from the drinking life began to die. They were decent, talented, generous, and humane. But as they approached the end, physically ruined by decades of drinking, I remembered more of their good times than they did. In a way, this book is about them too. " ---- From the Introduction.

A Drinking Life ( ISBN 9780316341028 )

Infinity Books Japan

Kawaguchi, Stm, Japan
Price : 6 USD
Readers expecting a gossipy "How I became a newspaper man" autobiography wo n't find it in reporter-novelist Hamill's first nonfiction book. The title notwithstanding, this is also no powerful Days of Wine and Roses memoir. Ha mill devotes many pages to an almost year-by-year account of his Depression and World War II Brooklyn childhood. The son of Irish immigrants, Hamill s oon learns about the "culture of drinking" from his alcoholic father. Hamil l at first seeks escape through pulp fiction and comic books (he longs to b e a cartoonist), but as a teenager he gets drunk with his street pals and b ecomes sexually confident under booze's liberating influence. The rest of H amill's book is a sketchy overview of his Navy years, his turbulent first m arriage, his early career at the New York Post , and of course his "drinkin g life.".

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