Brian Doyle (4) (1956–2017)
Author of Mink River
For other authors named Brian Doyle, see the disambiguation page.
About the Author
Brian James Patrick Doyle was born in New York on November 6, 1956. He received a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Notre Dame 1978. He worked for several magazines including U.S. Catholic, Boston College Magazine, and Portland Magazine, which he was editor of from 1991 until his show more death. His books included Mink River, Martin Marten, Bin Laden's Bald Spot, Children and Other Wild Animals, Prayer for Cashiers and Checkout-Counter Folks, and The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson. He died Saturday from complications related to a brain tumor on May 27, 2017 at the age of 60. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Works by Brian Doyle
A Book of Uncommon Prayer: 100 Celebrations of the Miracle & Muddle of the Ordinary (2014) 120 copies, 1 review
The Grail: A Year Ambling & Shambling Through an Oregon Vinyard in Pursuit of the Best Pinot Noir Wine in the Whole Wild World (2006) 53 copies, 4 reviews
Children and Other Wild Animals: Notes on badgers, otters, sons, hawks, daughters, dogs, bears, air, bobcats, fishers, mascots, Charles Darwin, newts, ... tigers and various other… (2014) 34 copies, 2 reviews
A Sense of Wonder: The World's Best Writers on the Sacred, the Profane, and the Ordinary (2016) — Editor — 28 copies, 1 review
Associated Works
Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to the Present (2007) — Contributor — 219 copies, 3 reviews
True Stories, Well Told: From the First 20 Years of Creative Nonfiction Magazine (2014) — Contributor — 56 copies, 10 reviews
St. Peter's B-list: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints (2014) — Contributor — 32 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Doyle, Brian James Patrick
- Birthdate
- 1956
- Date of death
- 2017-05-27
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Notre Dame University (1978)
- Occupations
- editor
- Organizations
- University of Portland
- Short biography
- BiographyBrian Doyle (born in New York in 1956) is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland, in Oregon. he is the author of thirteen books, among them the novels Mink River and Cat's Foot, the story collection Bin Laden's Bald Spot, the nonfiction books The Grail and The Wet Engine, and many books of essays and poems. He is cheerfully NOT the great Canadian novelist Brian Doyle, nor the astrophysicist Brian Doyle, nor the former Yankee baseball player Brian Doyle, nor even the terrific actor Brian Doyle-Murray. He is, let's say, the Oregon writer Brian Doyle.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- Portland, Oregon, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
Margaret Renkl's glowing review in the New York Times turned me towards this. I'm always on the lookout for another Helen MacDonald, Henry Beston, Loren Eiseley, or Aldo Leopold. At his very best, Doyle nips at their heels with deft and vivid imagery, precise observations, sometimes gorgeous language, and emotional power. He's very good on birds: a coop-raiding gyrfalcon is described rising "easily into the fraught and holy air" with a chicken dangling from its "daggered fist," then glaring show more back at the henhouse owner "with the clear and unarguable message, I am taking this chicken and you are not going to be a fool and mess with me." An owl "launch[es] at dusk, like a burly gray dream against the last light." There are herons and hummingbirds and hawks besides. He is a devoted and devout father: he cradles his groggy toddler son after the boy's major heart surgery, clicking numbly through TV channels until the child suddenly rouses, takes the remote, and clicks it back to watch "the massive grace and power and patience of" tigers, and laughs while his father weeps and prays. Lovely, poignant, and sometimes funny - his sister's assessment of the minds the guinea fowl she supervises at her convent made me laugh out loud... birds again.
He can also be arrogant and not nearly as funny as he thinks he is ("Brian Doyle Interviews Brian Doyle"); he likes to refer to cats at the spawn of Satan. The verbiage is lush, the sentences are long. One essay - and not a particularly good one, about pants - begins with a 379-word sentence, which he is quite proud of. He has cultivated a very particular style of dense, straggling passages, packed with alliteration, and rattling chains of nouns, adjectives, clauses and semi-colons. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it's precious and I picture him clacking down on the final period and chuckling to himself: "Ha! There! That's a good one!"
All told, I found this uneven: some pieces brought smiles or a lump to my throat; others I skipped after the first sentence. Doyle is a wonderfully observing, thoughtful writer dedicated to this craft, his family, the natural and spiritual worlds. He wonders if a dead mole would miss the pressure of the soil against its body, and decides to bury it rather than tossing it over the fence. He ponders the rough, jokey, fierce love of brothers; the gentle intelligence and kindness of his father. He raves at human violence and why we cannot seem to evolve beyond it, even while hoping we might someday do so. He reminds us of the gift we have in the world, and how we shouldn't miss a detail. He's right about that.
juliestielstra.com show less
He can also be arrogant and not nearly as funny as he thinks he is ("Brian Doyle Interviews Brian Doyle"); he likes to refer to cats at the spawn of Satan. The verbiage is lush, the sentences are long. One essay - and not a particularly good one, about pants - begins with a 379-word sentence, which he is quite proud of. He has cultivated a very particular style of dense, straggling passages, packed with alliteration, and rattling chains of nouns, adjectives, clauses and semi-colons. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it's precious and I picture him clacking down on the final period and chuckling to himself: "Ha! There! That's a good one!"
All told, I found this uneven: some pieces brought smiles or a lump to my throat; others I skipped after the first sentence. Doyle is a wonderfully observing, thoughtful writer dedicated to this craft, his family, the natural and spiritual worlds. He wonders if a dead mole would miss the pressure of the soil against its body, and decides to bury it rather than tossing it over the fence. He ponders the rough, jokey, fierce love of brothers; the gentle intelligence and kindness of his father. He raves at human violence and why we cannot seem to evolve beyond it, even while hoping we might someday do so. He reminds us of the gift we have in the world, and how we shouldn't miss a detail. He's right about that.
juliestielstra.com show less
“The ocean is a wilderness.”
“The warbler launches an incredible tumultuous song covering many subjects.”
Captain Declan O' Connor is barely out of his twenties but he is a land-weary soul and decides one day, to pack up his small fishing trawler, The Plover, and spend the rest of his days on the open sea. Being alone and being free of responsibilities are his only concerns.
He is soon joined by a single gull, who maintains a spot, just off the bow and then a friend, with his crippled show more daughter, hitch a ride and before Declan realizes it, he has a boat full of lively company. The human sort, along with a warbler, an albatross and a pair of rats.
A mystical, seafaring yarn, full of wonderful prose. This novel is like a colorful cousin to The Life of Pi, which is a book I admire, but this is even more self-assured and lyrical. It is a 300 page song and made me an instant fan of Brian Doyle.
How can you resist, plums like this:
“...two men almost thirty, in the fullness of their strength, seasoned by rage and pain, yet open to adventure and liable to joy, neither man hungry for money or power, each thirsty for something deeper he could not name but only feel it missing; two lean arrows in grim defense of the child behind them.” show less
“The warbler launches an incredible tumultuous song covering many subjects.”
Captain Declan O' Connor is barely out of his twenties but he is a land-weary soul and decides one day, to pack up his small fishing trawler, The Plover, and spend the rest of his days on the open sea. Being alone and being free of responsibilities are his only concerns.
He is soon joined by a single gull, who maintains a spot, just off the bow and then a friend, with his crippled show more daughter, hitch a ride and before Declan realizes it, he has a boat full of lively company. The human sort, along with a warbler, an albatross and a pair of rats.
A mystical, seafaring yarn, full of wonderful prose. This novel is like a colorful cousin to The Life of Pi, which is a book I admire, but this is even more self-assured and lyrical. It is a 300 page song and made me an instant fan of Brian Doyle.
How can you resist, plums like this:
“...two men almost thirty, in the fullness of their strength, seasoned by rage and pain, yet open to adventure and liable to joy, neither man hungry for money or power, each thirsty for something deeper he could not name but only feel it missing; two lean arrows in grim defense of the child behind them.” show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
“Something is opening in me, some new eye. I talk less and listen more. Stories wash over me all day like tides. I walk through the bright wet streets and every moment a story comes to me, people hold them out like sweet children, and I hold them squirming and holy in my arms and they enter my heart for a while, and season and salt sweeten that old halting engine and teach me humility and mercy, the only lessons that matter, the lessons of the language I most wish to learn; a tongue best show more spoken without a word, without a sound, hands clasped, heart naked as a baby.”
“But you cannot control everything...All you can do is face the world with quiet grace and hope you make a sliver of difference...You must trust that you being the best possible you matters somehow...That being an attentive and generous friend and citizen will prevent a thread or two of the social fabric from unraveling.”
“Not to mention they (raptors) look cool, they are seriously large, they have muscles on their muscles, they are stone-cold efficient hunters with built-in-butchery tools, and all of them have this stern I could kick your ass but I'm busy look, which took me years to discover was not a general simmer of surliness but a result of the supraorbital ridge protecting their eyes.”
Brian Doyle is a Canadian writer of novels, essays and short stories. He died in 2017 of brain cancer, at the age of 60. This is an excellent collection of his essays, released in 2019. He has a knack for finding the joys in life – a stroll in the woods, birding his favorite patch, a deep discussion with a good friend, watching the wonder of his children at play. He also had a strong spiritual side as well and a couple of these pieces explore the solace he finds there. If you are looking for something uplifting during these dark times, give this terrific book a try. show less
“But you cannot control everything...All you can do is face the world with quiet grace and hope you make a sliver of difference...You must trust that you being the best possible you matters somehow...That being an attentive and generous friend and citizen will prevent a thread or two of the social fabric from unraveling.”
“Not to mention they (raptors) look cool, they are seriously large, they have muscles on their muscles, they are stone-cold efficient hunters with built-in-butchery tools, and all of them have this stern I could kick your ass but I'm busy look, which took me years to discover was not a general simmer of surliness but a result of the supraorbital ridge protecting their eyes.”
Brian Doyle is a Canadian writer of novels, essays and short stories. He died in 2017 of brain cancer, at the age of 60. This is an excellent collection of his essays, released in 2019. He has a knack for finding the joys in life – a stroll in the woods, birding his favorite patch, a deep discussion with a good friend, watching the wonder of his children at play. He also had a strong spiritual side as well and a couple of these pieces explore the solace he finds there. If you are looking for something uplifting during these dark times, give this terrific book a try. show less
This is an extended dream of a novel, set in an Our Town that lies midway between Spoon River and Brigadoon – a place of mist and rains and tides, where animals talk and humans struggle to find that spot between surviving and truly living.
Set in a tiny coastal Oregon village, the plot (such as it is) meanders about following various inhabitants as they work and love and think about the future. The main family is that of Worried Man and his wife, Maple Head, their daughter No Horses, her show more husband Owen, and their son Daniel. Worried Man, aided and abetted by his friend Cedar, run the Public Works department under a vague mission statement that seems to involve doing whatever they think would be a good idea for the town. The magical-realism tale unspools in multiple languages – English, Gaelic, Italian, Salish, Latin, and Bear, and Doyle brings the landscape to breathing, pulsating life on every page.
Don’t think about it too hard. Just enjoy. As the crow says, “stories are not only words. Words are just the clothes people drape on stories.” And a magical drapery it is. show less
Set in a tiny coastal Oregon village, the plot (such as it is) meanders about following various inhabitants as they work and love and think about the future. The main family is that of Worried Man and his wife, Maple Head, their daughter No Horses, her show more husband Owen, and their son Daniel. Worried Man, aided and abetted by his friend Cedar, run the Public Works department under a vague mission statement that seems to involve doing whatever they think would be a good idea for the town. The magical-realism tale unspools in multiple languages – English, Gaelic, Italian, Salish, Latin, and Bear, and Doyle brings the landscape to breathing, pulsating life on every page.
Don’t think about it too hard. Just enjoy. As the crow says, “stories are not only words. Words are just the clothes people drape on stories.” And a magical drapery it is. show less
Lists
Spirituality (1)
Awards
Children and Other Wild Animals: Notes on badgers, otters, sons, hawks, daughters, dogs, bears, air, bobcats, fishers, mascots, Charles Darwin, newts, ... tigers and various other zoological matters (Finalist – Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction – 2016)
The Grail: A Year Ambling & Shambling Through an Oregon Vinyard in Pursuit of the Best Pinot Noir Wine in the Whole Wild World (Finalist – Sarah Winnemucca Award for Creative Nonfiction – 2006)
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 34
- Also by
- 12
- Members
- 2,114
- Popularity
- #12,174
- Rating
- 4.1
- Reviews
- 145
- ISBNs
- 213
- Languages
- 5
- Favorited
- 4
