 He wrote screenplays, several novels and a bestselling memoir, A Drinking Life. Pete Hamill was an inspiration to generations of reporters who reveled in his unique style of storytelling and his gifts as a writer and reporter who spoke truth to power, the New York Press Club said in a statement. His 2003 novel, Forever, told the story of Cormac OConnor, an Irish Jew who arrives in New York in 1740 and is granted eternal life as long as he stays on the island of Manhattan. 