Page Turner: Have a story to tell

Published works: “Pull Me Up: A Memoir,” published by W.W. Norton and Co. last year and released this month in paperback.
Personal: The “About New York” columnist for The New York Times, and before that, a reporter at the Times, the Providence Journal and the Manchester, Conn., Journal-Inquirer. Shared a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk award, and won some others, including this year’s Mike Berger Award from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

What is your latest book about?
My latest and, so far, my only: “Pull Me Up: A Memoir.” It could also be called “The Worth in the Life of a Knucklehead.” I grew up in a working-class town on Long Island, the son of an Irish-American father from New York who raged against the system, and an Irish mother from a County Galway farm who could spin a hilarious, sharply observed prose poem out of a quick run to Pathmark. I became a reporter, courted Mary for 12 years before marrying her, and experienced the highs of fatherhood and the lows of my mother’s death and my struggle with cancer. The book is about finding and cherishing the stories in life, so it’s fitting, I guess, that it begins and ends in Ireland.

What is your writing routine? Are there ideal conditions?
I write early in the morning before going to the Times, where I report and write all day. Then I go home and pass out. The ideal condition for me is to have a story to tell. If I have the story, I become so focused that I could write it in a crowded, noisy bar — which I’ve done.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
The advice is trite, but that makes it no less true. Perform a gut-check and make sure that this is what you want to do. Read the best there is, from Herman Melville to Frank McCourt; from Jane Austen to Joan Didion. Develop a routine. If it’s an hour a day, stick to it. Find your voice. Don’t give up.

Name three books that are memorable in terms of your reading pleasure?
Off the top of my head: “Charming Billy,” by Alice McDermott; “The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald; and “In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash,” by Jean Shepherd.

What books are you currently reading:
This is going to sound like I only read the works of Irish and Irish-American authors, which isn’t true, but it happens to be the case right now. I just finished “Hour of the Cat” by Peter Quinn and “Green Suede Shoes” by Larry Kirwan. I am currently reading “Star of the Sea,” by Joseph O’Connor. And on my nightstand, next, “Washington’s General: Nathanael Greene and the Triumph of the American Revolution” by Terry Golway, and “102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers,” by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn. Of these authors, only Mr. O’Connor enjoys the distinct pleasure of not knowing me.

Is there a book you wish you had written?
“How to Make Love Like a Porn Star,” by Jenna Jameson. No, strike that. Totally inappropriate. I meant to say, “The Grapes of Wrath,” by John Steinbeck.

Name a book that you were pleasantly surprised by?
“The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay,’ by Michael Chabon. It’s brilliant.

If you could meet one author, living or dead, who would it be?
I’m going to dodge this question too. Charles Dickens, to ask about those nighttime walks through London’s underbelly; Herman Melville, to ask about the creation of Ahab; and James Joyce, to thank him for “The Dead.”

What book changed your life?
The Catholic schoolboy in me is telling me to say, “The New Testament, Sister.” But in fact it was “Ball Four,” by Jim Bouton, which de-mystified major league baseball and reduced gods like Mickey Mantle to mortals — flawed mortals at that. I read it when I was about 12, and the innocence ended there.

What is your favorite spot in Ireland?
At the edge of Galway Bay, in Kinvara, at twilight on an August night and at midnight in late December.

You’re Irish if . . .
you’re still reading this.