A Drinking Life: A Memoir
by Pete Hamill
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Book Summary Information
Author: Pete HamillEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1995-04-01
ISBN: 0316341029
Number of pages: 265
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Book Reviews of A Drinking Life: A Memoir
Book Review: Pete Hamill - Good Guy & Bad Guy
Summary: 5 Stars
Pete Hamill was born in Brooklyn in 1935. His father was poor, a cripple (lost one leg in a soccer accident), an alcoholic, and little interested in Pete - his first born (5 more to come), while his mother - though overworked and frequently pregnant - was loving and caring and always inspiring him to behave properly and to amount to something in life. Like most kids of the `40's Pete found great joy in comic strips, comic books, big-little books, in the many varieties of penny candy, and in movies that offered triple features - plus a serial, a newsreel, a cartoon and previews - for only 12 cents. As he grew up he learned to love the Dodgers, boxing, the gym and weight lifting, and street games like stickball, kick the can, `off the point', etc. His childhood heroes included boxers, baseball players, and cartoonists, especially, (like Milt Caniff, originator of `Terry and the Pirates' and `Steve Canyon'), since cartoonists could entertain the world while at the same time enriching themselves. His mother steered him toward the church and alter boy duties, but his interest in the church gradually waned when he observed that aside from the attractions of its glitter and imagery (candles, statuary, baroque paintings, music,palm branches, pine needles, etc.) it offered little to those who were struggling to deal with life's social evils - like unemployment, poverty, exploitation, alcoholism, bigotry, etc. Pete works hard in school and eventually wins a full scholarship to St. Regis, the top Jesuit high school on Manhattan. After 2 years Pete caves in to the social and academic pressures at Regis and returns to a high school in Brooklyn for his junior year. He drops out of school in his senior year - because he finds it disappointing. School, he notes, fails to deal with the real issues in life - like alcoholism, bigotry, poverty, the internment of Japanese-Americans, conservative publishers, right-wing broadcasters, anti-Semitism, war profiteers, etc. Pete gets a job, and like his worker peers he starts to devote more and more time to bar-hopping, drinking, and girls. Drinking, he discovers, is what real grown men do when they want to have real fun, and sing, and tell jokes. Bars, he learns, is where real men can make instant connections, like the rich do in their fancy clubs, where one goes to celebrate victories, or births, or to mourn losses, or a death, or just to dream, or to reminisce, or to generate some courage. Drinking, however, has a downside; booze reduces inhibitions, which causes some to behave erratically, or belligerently, and some will then resort to instant justice or the satisfaction they derive from punching out some other obstreperous, disagreeable drunk. Now a worker, Pete begins to deal more seriously with his present dilemma - how someday to find another job that offers both security and satisfaction. He still dreams of being a cartoonist, so he continues to practice drawing, he takes art classes, and he takes other jobs that involve drawing. He also serves an uneventful tour of duty in the navy. When he returns to Brooklyn a friend persuades him to go to Mexico (Mexico City College) where Pete can get a degree in art. In Mexico City Pete has a traumatic experience: he gets into a brawl with the police. They hold him for some days in different jails until friends can find him and get him released on bail. While trying to personally relive and comprehend this personal disaster
Pete discovers that the art medium is deficient, that the only way he can relive and deal with this experience is by writing about it. Out of this painful experience Pete resolves to drop art and become a writer. He flees Mexico (to avoid a trial and probable jail time) and returns to Brooklyn. He writes to the editor of the New York Post and explains how the Post needs a writer like himself, who can attract readers like himself - the offspring of an immigrant, poor, uneducated, worker class, etc. The Post gives Pete a tryout, he's hired, and his writing career is launched. Pete eventually lives in and reports from
exotic locations like Barcelona, Dublin, Rome, Mexico City (the charges against him there long lost!), Laguna Beach, and Washington, D.C.. In writing Pete discovered his `bliss': he found a career that paid him well and that enabled him to entertain, uplift, and educate his fellow mortals. He has a hard-hitting writing style that befits a former hard drinking, brawling, big city dwelling, ex- navy yard worker: he minces no words, wastes no words, and flaunts no words. During his life he admits to being at times a `bad guy' (from his father's side), and, at times, a `good guy' (from his mother). His book
tells us about both `guys'. At a New Year's eve party in 1972 Pete realized while staring into his drink that booze had become an unacceptable liability in his life. So, he stopped drinking, `cold turkey', immediately. That means, I guess, that I can never share a drink with Pete - which I would enjoy. On the other hand, perhaps I already have - perhaps at that dusty little cantina across the road from MCC at 16 Kms on the Mexico City-Toluca highway - since I, too, was a beer-swilling G.I. Bill student at MCC that same year when Pete was studying in Mexico. In any case, Saludos to you, Pete, and keep on writing. RWA, B.A. Int. Rel., Mexico City College, 1958.
Summary of A Drinking Life: A Memoir
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.Irish Books
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