num_pages: 265
description: 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
language: English
title: A Drinking Life
titlecomplete: A Drinking Life
genres: New York, Biography, Alcohol, Autobiography, Nonfiction, Irish Literature, History, Journalism, Memoir, Biography Memoir
ratings_count: 4075
publisher: Back Bay Books