Biography

For over forty years there was a restaurant in Manhattan, New York, which attracted famous writers. Brian McDonald was a bartender there for over a decade, so had a front row seat watching some of the greatest novelists and non-fiction writers of the 20th Century in their most contemplative moments. He once saw Hunter S. Thompson set himself on fire drinking flaming shots of 151-proof Bacardi rum. They had to smother him with a tablecloth. Perhaps it was that night, or one like it, when Brian began to believe that maybe he too could become a writer.

Since that impertinent beginning, Brian has been able to assemble a modest body of work that includes the memoirs Last Call at Elaine's: A Journey from One Side of the Bar to the Other (St. Martin's Press); Five Floors Up: The Heroic Family Story of Four Generations in the FDNY (Grand Central Publishing); In the Middle of the Night: The Shocking True Story of a Family Killed in Cold Blood (St. Martin's True Crime); Safe Harbor: A Murder in Nantucket (St. Martin's Press); Indian Summer: The Tragic Story of Louis Francis Sockalexis, the First Native American in Major League Baseball (Rodale Books); and My Father's Gun: One Family, Three Badges, One Hundred Years in the NYPD (Dutton). "My Father’s Gun" was made into the award-winning feature-length documentary of the same name My Father's Gun (2002).

Brian has also written the New York City Trivia trilogy which consists of: book 1 "NYPD True: 99 Trivia Questions: Legendary Cops, Killer Cases, and Hollywood Heat;" book 2 "ResQue Me;" and book 3 "Trash Talk : Ultimate San-Man Trivia."

Brian has ghostwritten or acted as a book doctor on half a dozen successfully published memoirs, and has collaborated with Malachy McCourt on Death Need Not Be Fatal (Center Street), a humorous and poignant memoir of facing the Great Hereafter. As Brian waits for his next inspiration, he spends his time crafting masterpieces for others.
- IMDb mini biography by: Brian McDonald