Pete Hamill

Présentation de l’éditeur
A rich historical and personal portrait of Manhattan from the bestselling writer who is for many the living embodiment of the city.
Manhattan, the keystone of New York City, is a place of ghosts and buried memory. One can still see remnants of the British colony, the mansions of the robber barons, and the speakeasies of the 1920s. These are the places that have captivated the imaginations of writers for centuries. Now Pete Hamill brings his unique knowledge and deep love of the city to a New York chronicle like no other.
During his 40 years as a newspaperman, Pete Hamill has been getting to know Manhattans neighborhoods and inhabitants intimately, bearing witness to their greatest triumphs and tragedies. From the winding, bohemian streets of Greenwich Village to the seedy alleyways of the meatpacking district and to the weathered cobblestones of South Street Seaport, Hamill peels back the layers of history to reveal the citys past, present, and future.
More than just history or reporting, this is an elegy by a native son who has lived through some of New Yorks most historic moments, and who continues to call this magnificent, haunted city his home.

Présentation de l’éditeur
Pete Hamill's collected stories about Brooklyn present a New York almost lost but not forgotten. They read like messages from a vanished age, brimming with nostalgia: for the world after the war, the days of the Dodgers and Giants, and even, for some, the years of Prohibition and the Depression.

The Christmas Kid is vintage Hamill. Set in the borough where he was born and raised, it is a must-read for his many fans, for all who love New York, and for anyone who seeks to understand the world today through the lens of the world that once was.

"Hamill, a master raconteur, mines his own roots in this enchanting new anthology."-New York Times

photo : Marc Yankus

pour en faire la couverture, on a échangé l’arrière-plan et surtout la luge… mais c’est le même garçon

Présentation de l’éditeur
A powerful short novel that's vintage Hamill-an evocative, emotionally involving tale of fathers and sons, loss and yearning, forgiveness and approbation-is restored to print.
Brooklyn, 1952.
It is Christmastime and a young sailor named Pete is home on leave, temporarily liberated from the specter of war in Korea. He's back in the old neighborhood, discovering firsthand that the girl he left behind evidently meant what she said in the Dear John letter she sent him. He's back in the dreary Seventh Avenue apartment that his mother can ill afford to decorate for the holidays. And he's back facing off with Billy, the gruff Irish factory worker who is his father, yet seems forever a stranger-until, on Christmas Eve, Pete pays his first visit to Rattigan's, the local bar where his father hangs out, the place where Billy seems most fully alive.

Ruth Orkin, Cars in Snow, West 88th Street, 1952

Présentation de l’éditeur
In this collection of thirty-four sketches, the author captures the extraordinary range of people, experiences, places and feelings that is New York City -- the city behind the glamorous facade of Manhattan, inhabited by people who remember when this was "a great big wonderful town and they were young in its streets."

These sketches, many based on actual incidents, take as their subject the "smaller dramas" of mankind, the chance encounters and random episodes that inform one's life; often twisting suddenly, surprisingly, at the end, they convey strong feelings in little space.  Using all of New York as his broad canvas, Pete Hamill recreates the baffling array of human emotions, from sadness and nostalgia to home and love, with affection, grace and wry understanding.