Piecework: Writings on Men & Women, Fools and Heroes, Lost Cities, Vanished Calamities and How the Weather Was

by Pete Hamill

A rich and varied collection of Pete Hamill's best journalism that spans decades and covers topics as diverse as Donald Trump, stickball, and Northern Ireland..

Veteran journalist Pete Hamill never covered just politics. Or just sports. Or just the entertainment business, the mob, foreign affairs, social issues, the art world, or New York City. He has in fact written about all these subjects, and many more, in his years as a contributor to such national magazines as Esquire , Vanity Fair , and New York , and as a columnist at the New York Post , the New York Daily News , the Village Voice , and other newspapers.

Seasoned by more than thirty years as a New York newspaperman, Hamill wrote on an extraordinarily wide variety of topics in powerful language that is personal, tough-minded, clearheaded, always provocative. Piecework is a rich and varied collection of Hamill's best writing, on such diverse subjects as what television and crack have in common, why winning isn't everything, stickball, Nicaragua, Donald Trump, why American immigration policy toward Mexico is all wrong, Brooklyn's Seventh Avenue, and Frank Sinatra, not to mention Octavio Paz, what it's like to realize you're middle-aged, Northern Ireland, New York City then and now, how Mike Tyson spent his time in prison, and much more. This collection proves him once again to be among the last of a dying the old-school generalist, who writes about anything and everything, guided only by passionate and boundless curiosity. Piecework is Hamill at his very best.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Journalism, Memoir, Anthologies

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Pete Hamill was 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 the Navy, he completed his high school education. Then, using the educational benefits of the G.I. Bill of Rights, he attended Mexico City College in 1956-1957, studying painting and writing, and later went to Pratt Institute. For several years, he worked as a graphic designer. Then in 1960, he went to work as a reporter for the New York Post. A long career in journalism followed. He has been a columnist for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and New York Newsday, the Village Voice, New York magazine and Esquire. He has served as editor-in-chief of both the Post and the Daily News. As a journalist, he covered wars in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Lebanon and Northern Ireland, and has lived for extended periods in Mexico City, Dublin, Barcelona, San Juan and Rome. From his base in New York he also covered murders, fires, World Series, championship fights and the great domestic disturbances of the 1960s, and wrote extensively on art, jazz, immigration and politics. He witnessed the events of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath and wrote about them for the Daily News.

At the same time, Hamill wrote much fiction, including movie and TV scripts. He published nine novels and two collections of short stories. His 1997 novel, Snow in August, was on the New York Times bestseller list for four months. His memoir, A Drinking Life, was on the same New York Times list for 13 weeks. He has published two collections of his journalism (Irrational Ravings and Piecework), an extended essay on journalism called News Is a Verb, a book about the relationship of tools to art, a biographical essay called Why Sinatra Matters, dealing with the music of the late singer and the social forces that made his work unique. In 1999, Harry N. Abrams published his acclaimed book on the Mexican painter Diego Rivera. His novel, Forever, was published by Little, Brown in January 2003 and became a New York Times bestseller. His most recently published novel was North River (2007).

In 2004, he published Downtown: My Manhattan, a non-fiction account of his love affair with New York, and received much critical acclaim. Hamill was the father of two daughters, and has a grandson. He was married to the Japanese journalist, Fukiko Aoki, and they divided their time between New York City and Cuernavaca, Mexico. He was a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.

Author photo by David Shankbone (September 2007) - permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

Reviews

[Marcia Robinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of the essays have not aged well.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I discovered Pete Hamill through a well written book of fiction and loved it so much, I sought more. I was astounded by the sheer number of things he wrote in many genres, learned he was a well-known newsman, and struggled to choose just one library book for my next Hamill read. Then the man died and I read more about him and chose, because of his death, a collection of his writings.

This book took forever to finish. I certainly saw a variety of topics, ideas and opinions. My favorite section was about Mexico, in particular, Mexico City. Having been to Mexico City I was eager to see the city I wish I could visit again through his eyes, and learning even more of the history of Mexico.

His section "The Talent in the Room," gave me views of people I never would have learned about at this level. In particular, his writing on Frank Sinatra, Mike Tyson, and Jackie Gleason piqued my interest. Of course, JFK, was in this section. What I saw from these was a personal knowledge and maybe friendship with each man he wrote about, giving me a new perspective. I particularly wanted to know more about Tyson's post-prison attitudes and beliefs. (I may dig into that.)

Some choices were tedious and dated, but still worth my time. However, his section "Position Papers" grew annoying. I found that after slogging through his opinions on racial justice to be long and outdated and possibly problematic. This lead me to the next opinion piece, a very long treatise on an anti-pornography group in a chapter titled "The New Victorians" from a long ago issue of Playboy. He tore down the arguments of the anti-porn group in a very dismissive way. Now, whether I agreed or not, the length of the chapter caused me to throw in the towel and skip possibly 15 pages of book text, when I noticed the next chapter would also be too out of date and uninteresting. I rarely quit a book or skip pages, but "Position Papers" not a good section.

I am not unhappy to have read this. Hamill was a great writer, but it was very difficult to finish. I will pick something else of his next time.

[JB Webster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here are a few takeaways from reading this 1996 book: A Michigan State University study from the 1980s offered a group of four- and five-year-olds the choice of giving up television or their fathers. Surprisingly, one-third of the children chose to give up daddy. (I wonder what the results would be today in the age of cell phone games instead of TV?) Other topics: Ronald Reagan lived in a Hollywood wilderness; Donald Trump is an idiot (today it’s likely that Trump would call Hamill a sleazebag in response). These and other observations come from a potpourri of Hamill's non-fiction writings. Throughout his career, he worked as a newspaper reporter, columnist and magazine contributor. His reflections on figures like singer Frank Sinatra, comedian Jackie Gleason, and jailed boxer Mike Tyson captured my interest. Hamill was enamored with JFK, praising his grace, wit, irony, and courage. These are admirable qualities for all U.S. Presidents, Hamill alludes. About half of these reprinted articles I found engaging, full of detail, style and empathy. Other reflections, such as on Mexico and other foreign countries as well as his societal screeds I found worth only a skim

[JulieK · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this in bits and pieces over the course of several months. As in any collection, some essays were better than others (and only some aged well). I liked most of the profiles and travel pieces, while I found the political ones irritating. The New York essays were amazingly dated; his version of the city was unrecognizably apocalyptic. I lived there only a few years after they were published and didn't recognize the sense of fear and desolation he described in his native city.

[MaryBeth Long · Rating 3 out of 5]

While a number of these essays were quite good, including the ones about Sinatra, Mike Tyson in prison, Ireland and JFK, many of them simply did not age well. Reading about and disco-era sex and drugs seemed sad and quaint. Hamil was a marvelous writer and observer of life. This book needed more editing.

[peter brock · Rating 5 out of 5]

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If you come from Brooklyn you will enjoy Pete's prose and his take on various issues. I was particularly impressed with his treatment on racism and how he could be describing current affairs . sadly the solution to black development and success also remains the same.

[Jack Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Dying Breed

New York reporting at its finest. A good companion to “A Drinking Life.” Looking forward to more of the same.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful. Travel backed on time. Such a good clear writer. Will read more of his works.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sensational, moving collection of columns about many of the things Pete Hamill loved; New York City, Mexico, great artists and America itself.

[Bob Peru · Rating 3 out of 5]

hamill calls himself 'a man of the Left' and i suppose he was. an entertaining journalist for sure but too much of a grumpy old man. especially about drugs, race, and music.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some really good pieces in here, especially concerning politics and race.

"After a brief few months of hope, the macho adventure in Iraq, with the humiliating sideshow of the President of the United States panhandling for funds from our “allies,” indicates that the US just can’t abide peace." [City of the Damned / Esquire / December 1990]

"What happened to us in the last third of the twentieth century? It’s too easy to say that the sixties happened, or Vietnam happened, or Watergate happened. ... The apparently endless Cold War — which was their context — insisted on the doctrine of massive retaliation; overwhelming force became essential to our politics and permeated our popular culture. ... The leadership of the country obviously believed in the use of violence. Why was anyone surprised that Americans in the worst parts of large cities shared their beliefs?" [The Lawless Decades, Intro]

"... vast numbers of Americans — including, sadly, the best-educated — are again being taught to identify themselves with the qualifying adjectives of race, religion, ethnicity, and gender. ... And such categories, they believe, are destiny." [Endgame / Esquire, Dec. 1994]

"In foreign affairs, [Clinton’s] most poisonous critics remain in thrall to Ronald Reagan’s Hollywood worldview, the Big Dumb Ox theory of foreign engagement, using naked power to get your way." [Endgame / Esquire, Dec. 1994]

I also recommend 'The New Race Hustle' and 'Letter to a Black Friend.' Some so-called Liberals will probably cry 'Racist!', but I think they are mistaken.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pete Hamill's brand of journalism is engaging and bold with a raw New York edge. This is a guy who quit school to work in the Brooklyn yards, who later educated himself and developed from a crime beat reporter into a profound,erudite commentator. He writes lucidly about subjects he cherishes -- New York, politics, Mexico, literature, culture, art, philosophy -- and his own close call with mortality. Although he has his own distinctive style, he strikes one as a cross between Charles Bukowski and Hunter Thompson sans the narcotics. Toughs go smooth and crack books. Hamill has spent a large portion of his life smoking 3 packs a day and quaffing alcohol in noteworthy saloons (although his book The Drinking Life ends with his decision to give up alcohol). He found time to edit New York's greatest newspapers, compose some epic columns for a range of periodicals and share his unique views honed during a well-lived life. I love this guy.

[JohnM Koroly · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my three favorite writes of the second half of the century (Gore Vidal and Erica Jong the others). Never less than involving on any topic. Passion and thoughtfullness in equal parts. Actually got me interested in Mexico, which I've never been interested in!

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved the writing "A Drinking Life," but Pete Hamill's essays are reeeeally melodramatic.

[Patrick Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only guy who can effectively write about racetracks and social justice.