The goal is to be both disciplined and loose, so that the writing does not turn into a task or a chore. To leave myself behind, along with the mechanics, and disappear into the lives of my characters.

The culture of drink endures because it offers so many rewards: confidence for the shy, clarity for the uncertain, solace to the wounded and lonely, and above all, the elusive promises of friendship and love.

For those without money, the road to the treasure house of the imagination begins at the public library.

They all laughed. I drew their pictures and they asked for copies and I handed them out as if they were my tickets to the show. In the Navy Yard, I could drink with men because I worked with men; in the Parkview, I could drink with men because I drew their pictures. The world was a grand confusion. Finally, when I was bleary, when my hand wouldn't do what I wanted it to do, I went home. I would lie alone in the dark, feeling that I was a character in a story that had lost its plot.

Frank Sinatra was the voice of the 20th-century American city.

My ambition was to embrace those general qualities that Ernest Hemingway, a former newspaperman, once said should be present in all good books: 'the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.'

One thing is certain: for many of those who came back from WWII, the music of Frank Sinatra was no consolation for their losses. Some had lost friends. Some had lost wives and lovers. All had lost portions of their youth. More important to the Sinatra career the girls started marrying the men who came home. Bobby socks vanished from many closets. The girls who wore them had no need anymore for imaginary lovers; they had husbands. Nothing is more embarrassing to grownups than the passions of adolescence, and for many, Frank Sinatra was the passion.