There is a funny story that accompanies the review of this book. As I recently went to get a pedicure, the man (yes, man) who was rubbing my feet asked me, “Do you like to drink?” I paused from my book and thought how the night before I had had a glass of red wine. Was it obvious? Then the man pointed to the book I was reading: A Drinking Life, by Pete Hamill. “Oh,” I said, feeling relief. “No, this is not that kind of book,” I said. “I mean, it’s about the author growing up in Brooklyn during the Great Depression and World War II, and like, how he started drinking, sort of…” I prattled. Then I finally added the point about it not being a self-help book.
The man smiled and went back to my pedicure. I thought of explaining more, but I reasoned that I shouldn’t bother, for I’d already mumbled and stumbled my way through a half-assed attempt at a conversation. The funny part about it is that A Drinking Life is no doubt what one would call a “manly” book, loaded with machismo and drinking and fucking women, and here was I, at a nail salon, getting a pedicure by a man, trying to explain it. Anyhow, even if you don’t find this ironic, A Drinking Life is an excellent memoir that is not “self help” in any way. I only mention this because it seems like most memoirs today are whiny and self-pitying, and A Drinking Life is a work of literature. Actually, I mentioned that to the guy while he rubbed my feet. “This is literature,” I said. And it really is.
Were I to compare A Drinking Life to another work, perhaps a claim could be made that this is the male version of Betty Smith’s great novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, where both the fictional Francie Nolan and the real life Pete Hamill grow up in poor Brooklyn, both have Irish ancestry and have alcoholic fathers. Though both writers share similar biographical details, their writing is quite different, where Smith’s novel is rich, poetic and detailed, Hamill’s memoir is spare, prosaic and matter of fact. He is journalistic in his narrative approach, and this should be no surprise since he worked several decades as a reporter.
Article comments
1 - Victor Lana
I really enjoyed your review. Pete Hamill is a great writer, and as a New Yorker, I've been fortunate over the years to read his daily column. Now, I look forward to reading this book.