Journalistic essays offer commentary on American immigration policy toward Mexico, Mike Tyson, television, crack, Northern Ireland, and Octavio Paz.

20 years after his last drink Pete Hamill looks back on his early life. As a child during the depression and World War II he learnt that drinking was to be an essential part of being a man, it was only later he discovered its ability to destroy lives.

A journalist and author of Loving Women recreates the hard-drinking Brooklyn-Irish lifestyle that informed every aspect of his childhood and early career and that eventually destroyed his marriage.