1935- ; ed. Jesuit High School [NY]; son of Belfast Catholic parents, being the eldest of 7 children; left school at 16 and worked in Brooklyn Ship Yard, and afterwards joined US Navy; completed High School education with Jesuits; studied writing and painting at Mexico City College in 1956-57; studied at Pratt Institute and worked as graphic designer; became a journalist and started work with the New York Post in 1960; also worked for the New York Daily News, and New York Newsday, the Village Voice, New York magazine and Esquire; editor-in-chief of Post and the Daily News; covered 9/11 for the Daily News;

issued A Drinking Life (1994), a best selling memoir which spent 20 weeks on NY Times best seller list and tells the story of a son of Irish immigrants in Brooklyn who works as a journalist in Vietnam, Lebanon and N. Ireland and gives up drink on the brink of ruin 20 years before the date of composition; also A Killing for Christ (1968); The Gift (1973); Dirty Laundry (1978); The Deadly Piece (1979); The Guns of Heaven (1983); also two collections of short stories, Invisible City, and Tokyo Sketches; also Irrational Ravings (1971), Piecework (Jan. 1996), and News is a Verb (1998); appt. Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University, 2009; married to Fukiko Aoki, a journalist.