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

Dan Rattiner published the Montauk Pioneer in the early 1960's and eventually branched out to several free papers now offered as Dan's Papers. Rattiner has been eyewitness to significant social changes and the increasing awareness of the Hamptons as a social hotspot. As a local, he has brushed elbows with artists, musicians, actors, and heads of industry, old money, new money and politicians. His weekly writing places these social notables in everyday pursuits and places...though perhaps a bit tonier than the places around my neck of the woods. In the Hamptons, My Fifty Years with Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires and Celebrities is Rattiner's recollections of Hampton's life. From the moneyed seasonal visitors to the local fishermen (real life shark hunter Frank Mundus) and even writer John Steinbeck, he recalls the people who have crossed his path with affection and restraint. His insights are sharp but not barbed. In the Hamptons is a great summer book, or a book to read when you find yourself longing for summer ...Rattiner has a dry wit and an eye for details. This book could have been another (yawn) tell all about a place that has become a must for anyone who thinks they are anyone...but Rattiner has chosen to keep the tabloid element at bay and instead, writes about his hometown.

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.

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.

I've been around as long as Dan's Papers and remember in the early years Dan Rattiner had several summer papers such as the East Hampton Summer Sun. the Sag Harbor Pilot etc. The stories Dan wrote were always great and my favorite was local history. As Dan's business grew all these local summer weekly throwaways were incorporated into one paper, Dan's Papers. With the exception being I believe the Montauk Pioneer. Anyway, This new book from Dan is great. I remember alot of this stuff from the 60's and 70's, as it appeared in his paper, but he has rewritten it and it is still an enjoyable read. A book I would highly recommend to anyone. I still long for the time in the 1960's, when I could pick up a copy of the East Hampton Summer Sun at the A & P on Newtown Lane, but that of course is not possible. Thank you Dan for 48 years of pleasurable reading. P.S. Was anyone ever electrocuted for copying that local map you use to have in the back of your newspaper?

Being a Long Islander who spents some time in the Hamptons and Montauk, I found this book interesting. Its chapters contained anecdotal stories of events and people. Nice, easy, summer read.