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Pete Hamill Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Pete Hamill

Pete Hamill

Pete Hamill Biography

Pete Hamill was born in Brooklyn, N. Y. in 1935, the oldest of seven children of immigrants from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He attended Catholic schools, leaving school at 16 to work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a sheet metal worker, and then going on to the United States Navy. While serving in the Navy, he completed his high school education. Using the educational benefits of the G.I. Bill of Rights, he attended Mexico City College in 1956-1957, studying painting and writing, and later went to Pratt Institute.

After working as a graphic designer for a few years he joined the New York Post as a reporter in 1960 and has been a journalist ever since. He was a columnist for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and New York Newsday, the Village Voice, New York magazine and Esquire. He was also editor-in-chief of both the Post and the Daily News.

As a journalist, he covered wars in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Lebanon and Northern Ireland, and has lived for extended periods in Mexico City, Dublin, Barcelona, San Juan and Rome. From his base in New York he also covered murders, fires, World Series, championship fights and the great domestic disturbances of the 1960s, and wrote extensively on art, jazz, immigration and politics. He witnessed the events of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath and wrote about them for the Daily News.

He wrote much fiction, including movie and TV scripts. He published ten novels and two collections of short stories.

He was the father of two daughters and was married to the Japanese journalist, Fukiko Aoki. He died in New York City in early August 2020 of kidney and heart failure aged 85.

Fiction Bibliography

A Killing for Christ (1968)
The Gift (1973)
Flesh and Blood (1977)
Dirty Laundry (1978)
Deadly Piece (1979)
The Guns of Heaven (1983)
Loving Women (1989)
Snow in August (1997)
Forever (2002)
North River (2007)
Tabloid City (2011)

Pete Hamill's website

This bio was last updated on 08/05/2020. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

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Books by this Author

Books by Pete Hamill at BookBrowse
Tabloid City jacket North River jacket Forever jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Pete Hamill but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Kate Atkinson

    Kate Atkinson

    Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year prize with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Her four bestselling novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie became the BBC television series ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Forever

    Try:
    Life After Life
    by Kate Atkinson

  • Michael Chabon

    Michael Chabon

    Novelist, screenwriter, columnist and short story writer Michael Chabon was born May 24, 1963 in Washington, DC.   He grew up in the suburbs of Columbia, Maryland with his parents Robert, a physician, lawyer, ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    North River

    Try:
    Telegraph Avenue
    by Michael Chabon

We recommend 15 similar authors


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BookBrowse Book Club

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Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

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