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26th out of 158 books
—
236 voters
A Drinking Life: A Memoir
by
Pete Hamill
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.
Paperback, 280 pages
Published
April 1st 1995
by Back Bay Books
(first published July 12th 1993)
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I was expecting more of a story about alcoholism and specific drunk events in Hamill's life. This is much more than a story about alcoholism, it is a story about Hamill's life, and alcohol just so happens to be pervasive throughout his childhood and adulthood. This is truly a complete picture of a man, of his boyhood in the Neighborhood, his family, marriage, his career, and alcohol touched every aspect of his life. Drinking was a constant throughout Pete's journey--a way to celebrate with frien...more
Like all great memoirists Hamill doesn’t pull any punches; he reveals all in beautiful spare language. Like Mary Karr tells in her coming of age “Cherry” and “The Liars Club’ Hamill grew up in a poor working class family but unlike Karr he was raised in the mean streets of Brooklyn, the son of a drunken Irish father he disdained he saw himself as bounded by the limits of his immediate Brooklyn environment and expected to grow up to work a day job and hang at the bars at night only to do it again...more
Sep 10, 2011
Roy
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who wants to know more about life in NYC in the 50s and 60s.
Recommended to Roy by:
my dad
My dad gave me this book because it resonated with him and his life. He was barely one-year-old for V-E day, and he grew up in Harlem, not Brooklyn, so his life wasn’t in lock step with Hamill’s Drinking Life, but there were similarities. Both went to Catholic school, drank in the same bars, found early solace in the public library, and hated Cardinal Spellman. Like most boys in New York in the 50s they ran up against, and with, gangs. For this and other reasons, when it was time for my dad to r...more
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Date: 2010
Format: Book on CD
Why I read it: I was looking for a book on CD at my local library, and this jumped out. I lived in New York City in the 1970's, when Pete Hamill was a bit of a folk hero.
Peter Hamill is clearly an accomplished writer. He presented a picture of life in Irish Brooklyn in the 1940's that I never imagined. He made a bunch of mistakes that surprised me. He was selected to go to the most prestigious Catholic high school in New York City, and changed schools and then dropped...more
Format: Book on CD
Why I read it: I was looking for a book on CD at my local library, and this jumped out. I lived in New York City in the 1970's, when Pete Hamill was a bit of a folk hero.
Peter Hamill is clearly an accomplished writer. He presented a picture of life in Irish Brooklyn in the 1940's that I never imagined. He made a bunch of mistakes that surprised me. He was selected to go to the most prestigious Catholic high school in New York City, and changed schools and then dropped...more
My friend Sally thinks Anna Karenina should be called Levin; I always thought you might as well complain that Moby Dick isn't about the whale. I think I have found, however, the winner of the least apt title: this book has almost nothing to do with the author's drinking problem. It's a memoir, and the struggle with drink is no more a thread to his story than is the fact of his Irish ancestry. It's an interesting book, written in a forceful, journalistic style, but there are some questions it rai...more
I'm nearly done with this book. I don't drink more than wussy sweet wine, no higher than 4% alcohol.
I do not think I am so dorky for this. Pete Hamill talks about growing up surrounded with alcohol, having his first drink around the age of 11 and how drinking shaped his life. He talked about wanting to be an artist and a writer and having the pressure to not rise above his station thrust-ed on him by his peers.
I say, screw that. Live life the way you want to. Don't just drown your feelings in b...more
I do not think I am so dorky for this. Pete Hamill talks about growing up surrounded with alcohol, having his first drink around the age of 11 and how drinking shaped his life. He talked about wanting to be an artist and a writer and having the pressure to not rise above his station thrust-ed on him by his peers.
I say, screw that. Live life the way you want to. Don't just drown your feelings in b...more
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This was another "must find something for the car" selection. I had thought Hamill was a sportswriter--and he did write about sports occasionally, but that was a fraction of his work. I found this very well written and much more interesting than I expected. It's another coming-of-age saga, but one that also captures life in New York City (mostly Brooklyn) in the wartime and postwar years. All along the way, he weaves the influence of drink. Given his father's distasteful drunkenness, you'd think...more
I wasn't sure whether I wanted to give this book 4 stars or 5. I decided on 5 since it was so well written, and has remained in my thoughts since I put it down. Hammill's vivid depiction of life growing up in Brooklyn during the depression era and onwards, is well crafted and engaging. He writes about streets and buildings I know, but can only imagine in the backdrop of that time. Alcohol, of course, had a omnipresent role in his life, but isn't the sole focus of his book. It's a memoir- by som...more
Much like David Byrne's Bicycle Diaries, the title for Pete Hamill's memoir is a bit of a misnomer; to be sure, drinking plays a central role in Hamill's life, but this reads much more like a standard autobiography with lots of drinking to serve as the backdrop. Which is fine, of course, if you're a reader who happens to be interested in the life of Pete Hamill. I wasn't, necessarily, and that became a barrier to my enjoyment of the book.
So why wasn't I interested? Well, I might have been, but t...more
So why wasn't I interested? Well, I might have been, but t...more
My first instinct is to say this book was like a half-generation-older, less enjoyable version of The Tender Bar. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the book - I did - but I am so infatuated with The Tender Bar that the bar (pun!) is set almost impossibly high. It is possible that transposing the order I read the two books would have had a similar effect on their ratings, but I don't think so.
No doubt, Pete Hamill lived an interesting life -- second generation Irish immigrant growing up in the de...more
No doubt, Pete Hamill lived an interesting life -- second generation Irish immigrant growing up in the de...more
Began this book really relating to Pete Hamill, the boy, and feeling for him. Then as he got a little bit older he suddenly became pretty annoying, and Pete Hamill the writer started to annoy me as well. This book's called A Drinking Life, right? Because at times it seems like it could have been called, Women I've Done Sex With. The guy had a lot of sex I guess, but the sex wasn't related to his drinking at all, he just wanted to brag about his awesome sex life I feel. And what's more boring tha...more
Within this book Hamill sites Hemingway (I think) of saying great writers make their stories your stories, that great books get stored in your brain as your experiences and that bad or okay books just don't register. By that definition, this a great book. Hamill makes the sights, sounds and sensations of Brooklyn in the 40's and 50's so real that you really do experience them yourself and store them as your own. I marvelled at his writing style--he evokes sentiment without being sentimental, he...more
Pete Hamill has been many things: Columnist, novelist, liner notes writer for "Blood on the Tracks," boyfriend of Shirley McClain, street fighter, and one of four men to wrestle Sirhan Sirhan to the ground after the assassination of Robert Kennedy.
As the title proclaims, this book focuses on his life as a drunk. Luckily it's about much more than that: Hamill's true subject is growing up poor in Brooklyn in the 1930s, the war years, and the intellectual and cultural journey of a young man who dr...more
As the title proclaims, this book focuses on his life as a drunk. Luckily it's about much more than that: Hamill's true subject is growing up poor in Brooklyn in the 1930s, the war years, and the intellectual and cultural journey of a young man who dr...more
I almost dinged Hamill a star for writing too much like and too often about Hemingway. But I couldn't resist being bowled over by the memories of pre and post-world war II American Hamill lays out here. I read this in two days. The prose is spare and neat, like his hero. It makes you wonder where writing like this went, when people could explain themselves with no overwrought, florid sentences. The old storytellers. This isn't a book about addiction, but it is a memoir with the guest of honor at...more
Hamill does a nice job of telling the story of his childhood in Brooklyn growing up in the 40s/50s in a poor Irish family with a drunk for a father. Not a new story really, but there's enough depth of detail here to distinguish his account. He manages to capture the way that, despite living in a huge city, the neighborhood comes to define the boundaries of one's life. And how awkward and difficult escaping those boundaries can be. Booze is certainly a prominent theme but the book isn't simply a...more
The title of this book made me think it would be a memoir about overcoming alcoholism. It was, instead, a fairly engaging read about an accomplished writer who was born in 1935, a poor kid in New York. While his father was a drinker, and the author too had alcohol in his life, at page 185 (where I left off) it was still only a small part of the story. Despite the misleading title, Pete Hamill's story is fascinating in its illustration of growing up in the 50's including his interest in comic boo...more
I just love this guys writing. Even in the telling of his life you get caught up in the characters and the development of how he comes to be who he is. A must read for journalists for sure. I finished this one and thought...I need to read the other things he's written.
Couldn't put this book down. I was even reading it in my work truck between job sites.
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…..”
“The world was a grand confusion. Finally, when I was drunk, and my mind couldn’t do what I wanted it to do, I went home. I would lie alone In the dark, feeling that I was a character in a story that had...more
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…..”
“The world was a grand confusion. Finally, when I was drunk, and my mind couldn’t do what I wanted it to do, I went home. I would lie alone In the dark, feeling that I was a character in a story that had...more
I truly enjoyed this book. It is the account of how Pete Hamill's life was so entangled by drinking that he couldn't help but end up an alcoholic. He makes no excuses for himself or his choices. He is blunt and honest.
We are also treated to a first hand view of life in the 40's and 50's and what it was like to grow up poor and without positive male role models. Then we get a taste of life in the 60's with the Beat poets and writers. Historically, it is very interesting. I sort of wanted to hear...more
We are also treated to a first hand view of life in the 40's and 50's and what it was like to grow up poor and without positive male role models. Then we get a taste of life in the 60's with the Beat poets and writers. Historically, it is very interesting. I sort of wanted to hear...more
"I didn't know it at the time, but I'd entered the drinking life. Drinking was part of being a man. Drinking was an integral part of sexuality, easing entrance to its dark and mysterious treasure chambers. Drinking was the sacramental binder of friendships. Drinking was the reward for work, the fuel of celebration, the consolation for death or defeat. Drinking gave me strength, confidence, ease, laugher; it made me believe that dreams really do come true." pages 146-147
"Finally when I was bleary...more
"Finally when I was bleary...more
The story Pete Hamill tells of growing to adulthood and (eventually) giving up drinking is interesting both for the perspective on Brooklyn history (mostly Park Slope when it was an Irish neighborhood) but more for the struggle to live his life, and first to figure out what that meant. The last section glosses over many years and events without much detail - some, undoubtedly, because the details were lost to the drinking, but I can't shake the feeling that there was also some selective editing...more
Extremely sentimental, A Drinking Life waxes nostalgic while deftly building a case for the rationality of Hamill's alcoholism. From reading most of the book's reviews, it seems to have worked. Three-quarters of the novel are devoted to the first 14 years of Hamill's life; it's obvious to this reader, if not to Hamill, that most of the book is an excuse and a dishonest apology for his alcoholic behavior. The prose is good enough, it's well-written in that sense, but it lacks the brutal honesty o...more
Hamill describes his experiences, his relationship with his father, and his great loves in vivid, captivating detail. Drinking is a subcurrent throughout the book. It is late when a change of heart about the barrier that alcohol constructs in front of his abilities and his dreams. He otherwise seems to romanticize it right up to nearly the end. This change seems sudden, whereas in reality it might have been a slow crescendo towards the realization that drinking is not an enhancement but a hole i...more
Less about drinking and more about his childhood, his obsession with comics and art, and his transition into a newsman. The drinking is just a very thin thread that is woven throughout his life. Not particularly compelling or engaging to me. His character seems very inflated and unlikable. Emotionless and matter-of-fact throughout, like a newsman should be, I suppose, but it made him hard to relate to. Also, his treatment of how he quit drinking seems to minimize the struggles others have had wi...more
This memoir is honest, and very revealing. On a personal level, Hamill talks about how alcohol helped him to smooth over that hard parts of his life and on a social level the reader sees that way alcohol permeates the Irish immigrant experience in NYC and the difficult struggles to overcome poverty and discrimination. Later, we are treated to an inside view of NY tabloid journalism and again, alcohol is a constant. Hamill's account of his decision to stop drinking and how it changed his life is...more
This book is an autobiography of Pete Hamill, a reporter and writer from Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in the forties, during the war. His father was (yawn) an Irish immigrant who drank too much (yawn), was mean to his family (yawn). Pete's mother was a loving, intelligent woman who does not get nearly enough credit in this book.
Unfortunately, Pete resembles his father in the selfish way he lives his life. The best part of this book is the early part, with descriptions of life in Brooklyn duri...more
Unfortunately, Pete resembles his father in the selfish way he lives his life. The best part of this book is the early part, with descriptions of life in Brooklyn duri...more
I had originally read Hamill's "Downtown" and loved it (I'm a history buff). So I picked this up instead of any of his fiction thinking it would be more stories about old New York. So imagine my delighted surprise when I found out that he actually grew up less than a block from where I currently live (in South Slope).
Needless to say, the time period of his life before he moves away from home was an absolute joy for me to read about. He describes how an old Brooklyn neighborhood reacts to major...more
Needless to say, the time period of his life before he moves away from home was an absolute joy for me to read about. He describes how an old Brooklyn neighborhood reacts to major...more
With A Drinking Life, Hamill has written the great American proletarian memoir. Which is no small feat considering, aside from his working class roots, Hamill has become anything but a proletariat. I’m not disputing he was a hard working journalist who put his time in writing for the New York Post – a profession almost as hard as his former two fisted drinking binges. But what I find interesting is Hamill’s insistence on romancing his working stiff upbringing as if it somehow not only justifies...more
What a bore! Mistakenly, I thought this book would be about growing up in an alcoholic household and how that experience molded the writer. Instead I got a simpleminded coming of age story in an all too familiar atmosphere: Brooklyn in the 40's. Man, the way some people write about their youth in New York, you'd think they all attended the same writing seminar. Dodgers - check. Abusive father- check. Angelic mother - check. Hanging on the corner with your friends - check. Playing stick ball in t...more
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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 t...more
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“The world was a grand confusion. Finally, when I was drunk, and my mind couldn’t do what I wanted it to do, I went home. I would lie alone In the dark, feeling that I was a character in a story that had lost its plot.”
Sann “Don’t ever use the word tragedy again. You tell what happened, and let the reader say it’s a tragedy. If you’re crying, the reader won’t.”
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2 people liked it
Sann “Don’t ever use the word tragedy again. You tell what happened, and let the reader say it’s a tragedy. If you’re crying, the reader won’t.”
“I would understand later that baseball was what truly made him an American: the sports pages were more crucial documents than the Constitution.”
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1 person liked it
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