A Drinking Life

ISBN-13:	9780316341080
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	01/19/1994
Series:	Masters of Latin Literature
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	317,999
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

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