A Drinking Life: A Memoir

Pete Hamill

Little, Brown, Dec 14, 2008 - Biography & Autobiography - 265 pages

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.

What people are saying

Review: A Drinking Life: A Memoir

User Review  - Dan Mccoig - Goodreads

This book was published in 1994. I ran across the title in a list of "must read memoirs." The book more than lived up to its billing. Hamill is a journalist, essayist, and novelist who began his ...

Review: A Drinking Life: A Memoir

User Review  - Sandra Balzo - Goodreads

Interesting book that's about more than drinking.

About the author

Pete Hamill is a novelist, journalist, editor, and screenwriter. His books include the bestselling memoir A Drinking Life and the bestselling novels Snow in August, Forever, and North River. His new novel, Tabloid City, will be published in May 2011.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Drinking Life: A Memoir
• Author: Pete Hamill
• Publisher: Little, Brown, 2008
• ISBN: 0316054534, 9780316054539
• Length: 265 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General