A Drinking Life A Memoir

<b>This bestselling memoir from a seasoned New York City reporter is "a vivid report of a journey to the edge of self-destruction" (<i>New York Times</i>). </b> <br> 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. <br>In <i>A Drinking Life</i>, 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.<br><br> <b>"Magnificent. <i>A Drinking Life</i> is about growing up and growing old, working and trying to work, within the culture of drink." --<i>Boston Globe</i></b>