Peter Wright was born in Wallasey, England in 1926, eight years after the end of World War 1, a conflict which left a profound impression on him, not only because his Uncle Tom had been killed during the last offensive, but because of the appalling slaughter that he, even at an early age, considered senseless. His father, a marine engineer, died at sea following a collision with another ship.
After six years at a Dominican boarding school for boys, Blackfriars, where his mother hoped he would enter the Catholic priesthood, he went to sea as a deck apprentice with Elder Dempster Lines of Liverpool. Three years after gaining his Masters certificate, he immigrated to the United States where he worked as Port Captain, Stevedore Superintendent and Marine Surveyor.
His social drinking at sea eventually turned into addictive drinking after his arrival in the U.S. It went ignored for several years, but loss of jobs and family made it clear that he was on the road to self-destruction. Frequent visits to hospital and Recovery Clinics and a deep-seated belief in his own spirituality convinced him that Alcoholics Anonymous was his only salvation. And that is where he got sober.
He retired in 1991 and lives in Northern California. His new novel is expected to be published in 2005.
Introducing A Drop of The Hard Stuff
In spite of the somber sub-title, A Drop of the Hard Stuff is alive with the author's maritime adventures. Peter Wright has a keen sense of humor and an abundant appreciation of the absurd.
In 1943, he sailed Cardigan Bay in West Wales as a cadet on an ancient schooner, Garibaldi then went deepwater as a midshipman in the Merchant Navy. Through Peter's guileless eyes, everyday was an adventureb:
Being strafed by the Luftwaffe in the North Sea after two days at sea. Skirting a huge maelstrom eighty miles up the Congo River: Hauling a cargo of wild animals from West Africa for the Bronx and Baltimore Zoos : A death at sea and subsequent attempts to bury the body becomes a hilarious farce : Encountering the "Perfect Storm" which nearly cost him his life - and more."
Peter's recovery from alcoholism is a spiritual triumph; it brings the title of his book into sharp focus.
Luise Landers, Friend of the Library and Editor, writes:-
"Wright's writing voice tastes of British farce with gentle glances along the shoulder and tight little smiles as he presents the boy and man he was, and became. His writing is elegant, clear and simple making for a 'Thumping good read.' "
AN EXCERPT:
CHAPTER THREE
A brish northwest breeze carried sounds of the Mersey across the Wirral peninsula like a passage from the Bible, reminding us to pray for sailors in peril on the sea and not to forget the widows and orphans left behind by those drowned at sea. The psalm of foghorns, ships' whistles and the dirge-like clank of the middle ground buoy which marked the western end of the Pluckington Bank, were my lullaby. Another poignant memory of that tear-stained face of England ten years after the slaughter was over, was the hush that settled over the crowd at the cenotaph on Armistice Day, November 11, a few seconds before eleven o'clock. Clutching my mother's hand, I would squeeze tightly when the gun on the old fort at Seacombe went off. Peering up curiously into her face I wondered about the tears on her cheeks as the palintive notes of the Last Post echoed across the cobbles. At that time of my life, I knew nothing of my Uncle Tom who had been killed in France a few weeks before the end of the war.
A few days later a knock on the front door brought my mother out of the kitchen wiping flour off her hands and telling me to sstay back while she undid the bolt. Fromt he safety of her protective skin, I peered up and saw framed by the doorway a tall, scarecrow of a man dressed in the tattered remnants of an army uniform. A greatcoat with several buttons missing and pinned together at the
