A Drinking Life: A Memoir
by Pete Hamill
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Book Summary Information
Author: Pete HamillEdition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 1995-04-01
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 280
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Book Reviews of A Drinking Life: A Memoir
Book Review: A (Sort of) Drinking Life
Summary: 2 Stars
Pete Hamill may be a good newspaper reporter, but he "buried the lead" with the title of this memoir. It has actually very little to do with drinking--at least the kind of egregious, alcoholic drinking that Fitzgerald did--and unless the author is not telling the whole story, it's not about alcoholism. Maybe it wasn't meant to be, but then, he shouldn't have called it "A Drinking Life".
Aside from the fact that I found neither the story nor its style to be particularly compelling, the main problem is the author's lack of self-reflection. There is no agonizing over his problem, no soul-searching, no cataclysmic event in which a moment of clarity leads him to sobriety. It's as if he decides one day that he's allergic to peanuts and decides to give them up. In which case, there really isn't any story here worth mentioning, at least about drinking.
Carolyn Knapp's "Drinking: A Love Story" is a much better first person account about alcoholism, and "Angela's Ashes" is one of the best books ever written on the insidiousness of alcoholism as a family illness.
However, if you're looking for a memoir about an NY Irish kid who grows up to be a reporter, this might be the book for you.
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