A Drinking Life: A Memoir

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

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