In the Hamptons: My Fifty Years with Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires, and Celebrities [Hardcover]

Dan Rattiner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 6, 2008

Long before the Hamptons became famous for its posh parties, paparazzi, and glitterati, it was a sleepy backwater of fishing villages and potato farms, literary luminaries and local eccentrics. As the editor and publisher of the area’s popular free newspaper, Dan’s Papers, Dan Rattiner, has been covering the daily triumphs, community intrigues, and larger-than-life personalities for nearly fifty years.

A colorful insider’s account of life, love, scandal, and celebrity, In the Hamptons is an intimate portrait of a place and the people who formed and transformed it, from former residents like Andy Warhol and Willem de Kooning, colorful locals like bar owner Bobby Van and shark fisherman Frank Mundus (who the character Quinn from Jaws was based on), and literary figures like John Steinbeck and Truman Capote, to present-day stars like Bianca Jagger and Billy Joel.

An insider who lived there—as well as a Jewish outsider amid the WASP contingent—Rattiner both revels in and is rattled by all he witnesses and records in one of the world’s most famous places. With dry wit and genuine affection, he shares a story of the Hamptons that few know, one defined by the artists, painters, fishermen, farmers, dreamers, hangers-on, celebrities, and billionaires who live and play there.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As publisher of the Montauk Pioneer in the early 1960s, which branched into the longtime Hampton free newspaper, Dan's Papers, Rattiner knows his territory and shares a collection of charming early memories of the people among whom he lived and worked. Most of the recollections are from the 1960s, when the author, a Harvard graduate student in his 20s, having been introduced to Montauk when his father moved the family there to take over White's Pharmacy in 1956, runs the press largely by himself, borrowing a thousand dollars from local banker Merton Tyndall. While knocking door-to-door to sell ad pages and drum up stories, he meets the remarkable seasonal denizens of the Hamptons, such as the lovely daughter of Harrison Tweed III, Babette; the drinkers at Jungle Pete's, tightlipped about their dead crony Jackson Pollock; artist Balcomb Greene; the sun-bathing lady proprietors of the Memory Motel; reclusive John Steinbeck; and the real-life shark hunter Frank Mundus. As the Hamptons change from sleepy beaches to celebrity enclaves, the likable Rattiner boasts (modestly) about refusing an interview with then nobody Richard Nixon and playing baseball with notables such as George Plimpton and Bill Clinton. (May)
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Review

“[R]efreshing as a dip in the ocean at Main Beach….Rattiner, longtime publisher of the locally beloved weekly newspaper Dan’s Papers, provides a beach-chair view of New York’s storied swath of spot-lit sand in his new memoir.” –USA Today

“Rattiner’s tales have the flavor of oral history, the passing along of stories from friend to friend….In these narratives, the evidence of a life well-lived on a well-carved shore, Rattiner bottles the spirit of a rural enclave turned glamorous destination. In a characteristic tale, the author joins with a determined Giorgina Reid to arrest the crumbling of the Montauk cliff face, thus saving the iconically rugged and glorious lighthouse. Rattiner does the same in this treasury, preserving the myth and mystery of the shoreline, making sure memory erodes not, and that the light stays always on.”
—The Hampton Sheet

"Whether Rattiner is writing about well-known people or local notables, he presents his material in entertaining fashion, holding the readers' interest. His unusual vantage point enables him to trace a half-century of changes 'In The Hamptons.'"
—Jewish Journal

“As publisher of the Montauk Pioneer in the early 1960s, which branched into the longtime Hampton free newspaper, Dan's Papers, Rattiner knows his territory and shares a collection of charming early memories of the people among whom he lived and worked. Most of the recollections are from the 1960s, when the author, a Harvard graduate student in his 20s, having been introduced to Montauk when his father moved the family there to take over White's Pharmacy in 1956, runs the press largely by himself, borrowing a thousand dollars from local banker Merton Tyndall. While knocking door-to-door to sell ad pages and drum up stories, he meets the remarkable seasonal denizens of the Hamptons, such as the lovely daughter of Harrison Tweed III, Babette; the drinkers at Jungle Pete's, tightlipped about their dead crony Jackson Pollock; artist Balcomb Greene; the sun-bathing lady proprietors of the Memory Motel; reclusive John Steinbeck; and the real-life shark hunter Frank Mundus. As the Hamptons change from sleepy beaches to celebrity enclaves, the likable Rattiner boasts (modestly) about refusing an interview with then nobody Richard Nixon and playing baseball with notables such as George Plimpton and Bill Clinton.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Dan Rattiner has been chronicling the people and events of the Hamptons for as long as I’ve been going there (since the sixties). If anyone wanted some insight into what made this area such an interesting place, all they’d need was a copy of In the Hamptons. It’s as close to rubbing elbows as you can get. Enjoy!”
—Billy Joel

“If a guy says it happened in the Hamptons, and Dan Rattiner doesn’t know about it, it didn’t. Welcome to the high stool at the bar in the Memory Motel.”
—Tom Wolfe

“Dan Rattiner, a first-rate observer of life, has been observing the life of the Hamptons for nearly fifty years. In the Hamptons, the result of all that clear-eyed observation, gives us every facet of the place—the strange and ridiculous, the artistic, the funny, the lovable and beautiful. Fifty years from now when people ask, ‘What were the Hamptons?’ they will need only to pick up this rich, sparkling book.”
—Roger Rosenblatt, author of Lapham Rising

“A great read! Rattiner has done a terrific job with Dan’s Papers, and his book, In the Hamptons, is as colorful and engrossing as you would expect. He describes the coming-of-age of the Hamptons with insight and affection.”
—Donald J. Trump

“Wonderful reading....If I write here that I cannot imagine a chronicle more inclusive and revealing, fascinating and objective, yet for the greater part affectionate, I am not piling it on too thick. This book is damn good work.”
—Edward Albee

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1 edition (May 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307382958
• ISBN-13: 978-0307382955
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.2 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #765,605 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for anyone visiting the Hamptons, January 29, 2009

By 

Tracy A. Thomas (Shawnee KS) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In the Hamptons: My Fifty Years with Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires, and Celebrities (Hardcover)

This book opens your heart, and your eyes. And makes you laugh outloud. Dan Rattiner is the writer I would most like to emulate. He is the Mark Twain of our times. I shared this book with my niece before her first visit to the Hamptons, and it really made us appreciate the quirky, confident style that defines the people here.
Great writing, even if you are NOT headed to the Hamptons, or you lost your patootie in the market and are headed OUT! I also read Dans Papers online every week, to get my Dan fix.
There is something seductive about a culture or community of people that can laugh at itself, while being an absolute magnet for riches. It amazes and inspires me that a middle class drugstore owner's son, Dan, (and now his son,as well)has been so unstoppable that he designed a life where he can somehow afford the real estate in the heart of this culture zoo. This book is like a prose version of National Geographic visits Monte Carlo. Except the women are not topless. Just Botoxed. I loved this book so much I savored one chapter a night, right before going to bed, and was sorry when I reached the end.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Predictably Terrific, August 4, 2008

By 

HeyJudy "heyjudy" (East Hampton, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: In the Hamptons: My Fifty Years with Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires, and Celebrities (Hardcover)

DAN'S PAPERS are a local institution in The Hamptons, where I live myself. And, yes, there really is a Dan.

And it's Dan Rattiner who, for about the past 45 years, has made his papers great. (Actually, by now, there are just two editions, a small one for Montauk, at the extreme end of Long Island, where Dan grew up himself, and a large one that serves a widespread region.)

Though Dan was not born in The Hamptons, he did move here as a teenager, more than a half century ago. From the reminiscences in his memoir, IN THE HAMPTONS, he always had the keen eye of an observer, even when he still was an architectural student at Harvard.

Dan writes in an easy, effortless style and he appears to miss no details -- ever. Except when the subject is serious, his pieces are suffused with humor, and he does not suffer fools gracefully. Issues of DAN'S PAPERS may have as many as six, even eight, pieces that he has written.

I feel fair in saying that everyone who lives in The Hamptons -- indeed, everyone on the entire eastern end of Long Island -- loves this weekly news magazine.

So it was with great interest that most of us awaited the publication of IN THE HAMPTONS.

Knowing Dan's style, the book is everything one could expect. He effortlessly covers the long history of this area, first settled in 1639, when the Gardiner family arrived from England.

By virtue of his long tenure here, he pretty much has seen it all and he definitely remembers all that he saw.

Dan offers wonderful anecdotes about the ROLLING STONES, Bianca Jagger, Andy Warhol, the family of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the other early-arriving socialites -- Mrs. Onassis actually was born in East Hampton -- the rock stars such as Billy Joel and Paul Simon, the visitors like Bill Clinton, so many artists and writers that they have an annual charity softball game, and on and on. And on.

All of Dan's anecdotes, without exception, are fascinating, and each one is reported in Dan's literally inimitable prose.

On the other hand, in an area so rich in history and accomplishment, Dan obviously had to choose among his favorite topics to tell his story, and he had to have left out more than he could include. Lots of authors, media people, fine artists, rock stars, movie stars, billionaires, and leading classical musicians were not even mentioned.

I can't wait to read the sequel of IN THE HAMPTONS.

3.0 out of 5 stars Authentic, September 10, 2011

By 

Y. Elder "bargain lover" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: In the Hamptons: My Fifty Years with Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires, and Celebrities (Paperback)

An interesting history of the Hamptons by a man who knows all about it. I enjoyed the personal accounts, especially his friendship with Billy Joel.