A Native (Brooklyn) Sensibility: Pete Hamill on Writing and NYC

Ross Kenneth Urken in The Huffington Post offers a "Guest of a Guest" interview with journalist and author, editor of the NY Daily News and the NY Post, Pete Hamill.  (Decades apart, I was a fellow parishioner at Holy Name in Windsor Terrace, which we, the jugend of the late 60s and early70s, dubbed "The Mission.")  Mr. Hamill, 75, is in "post production" of a new novel entitled "Tabloid City" as well as working on his next book.

A quote from Mr. Urken's interview:

GofG: What is the ultimate goal of your literary career--entertainment, edification, immortality...?



PH: The personal goal is to live a fully conscious life. At 75, I've already had a long run, but there are books I still want to write, to say something about humans, one at a time. The great abstractions (or ambitions), including immortality, are beyond me. If a writer sits down to a blank screen or page, and says: onward to immortality, he or she will never write a sentence. Or if they do manage a few pages, they will be rubbish.

Also - "I don't spend much time looking at blogs (I've only read Moby Dick once) , but too many of those that I've seen are actually just a form of therapy. Most of the sites are, to me, too specialized: all politics or all sports, or all gossip. There is very little serendipity. But in general, I'm optimistic about the future."

Full item here