A DRINKING LIFE: A Memoir by...

A DRINKING LIFE: A Memoir by Pete Hamill (Back Bay Books: $11.95; 263 pp.). Even though he saw his father devolve from a charming raconteur to a semi-coherent sot, Pete Hamill grew up believing that drinking was a part of any social gathering and a ritual of manhood. Alcohol also cushioned his sense of alienation: In a Brooklyn neighborhood where a good job meant unionized manual labor, Hamill wanted to be an artist and a writer. The desire to create drew him into the pattern of a hard-drinking Bohemian. His lively memoir of a talent that was nearly destroyed serves as an indictment of the social forces that pressure men to drink heavily.