One long river of song : notes on wonder

Author

Brian Doyle

Call Number

• 814 D7542 (WSQ)

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Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2019.

Physical Description

xix, 251 pages ; 24 cm

Summary

"When Brian Doyle passed away at the age of sixty after a bout with brain cancer, he left behind a cult-like following of devoted readers who regard his writing as one of the best-kept secrets of the twenty-first century. Doyle writes with a delightful sense of wonder about the sanctity of everyday things, and about love and connection in all their forms: spiritual love, brotherly love, romantic love, and even the love of a nine-foot sturgeon. At a moment when the world can sometimes feel darker than ever, Doyle's writing, which constantly evokes the humor and even bliss that life affords, is a balm. His essays manage to find, again and again, exquisite beauty in the quotidian, whether it's the awe of a child the first time she hears a river, or a husband's whiskers that a grieving widow misses seeing in her sink every morning. David James Duncan sums up Doyle's sensibilities best in his introduction to the collection: "Brian Doyle lived the pleasure of bearing daily witness to quiet glories hidden in people, places and creatures of little or no size, renown, or commercial value, and he brought inimitably playful or soaring or aching or heartfelt language to his tellings." A life's work, One Long River of Song invites readers to experience joy and wonder in ordinary moments that become, under Doyle's rapturous and exuberant gaze, extraordinary."--Jacket flap.

Contents

• Joyus voladoras
• A shrew
• Tigers
• Leap
• Two hearts
• The deceased
• Eating dirt
• The anchoviad
• Illuminos
• Times tables
• My devils
• We did
• The sea
• Catch
• The meteorites
• First kiss
• [Silence]
• The final frontier
• Jones Beach
• The wonder of the look on her face
• The old typewriter in the basement
• The old Methodist church on Vashon Island
• Testimonio
• Mea culpa
• Brian Doyle interviews Brian Doyle
• Pants : a note
• 20 things the dog ate
• The Daoine sídhe
• Angeline
• The way we do not say what we mean when we say what we say
• On not "beating" cancer
• The hawk
• The praying mantis moment
• Heartchitecture
• The greatest nature essay ever
• The creature beyond the mountains
• Hoop
• Our daily murder
• Because it's hard
• Irreconcilable dissonance
• Lost Dog Creek
• Raptorous
• An leabharlann
• The bullet
• Fishering
• Tyee
• Everyone thinks that awful comes by itself, but it doesn't
• The Four Gospels
• God
• Clairtonica Street
• Dawn and Mary
• His last game
• Memorial Day
• 100th Street
• God again
• Beer with Peter
• The lair
• A song for nurses
• Cool things
• Address unknown
• Hawk words
• Bird to bird
• To the beach
• Chessay
• Lines hatched on the back porch of Eudora Welty's House in Jackson, Mississippi
• Joey's doll's other arm
• The room in the firehouse
• Selections from letters and comments on my writing
• Billy Blake's trial
• On All Souls Day
• Two anesthesiologists
• Joey
• A prayer for you and yours
• His listening
• His weirdness
• The tender next minute
• His holiness the Dalai Lama, manifestation of Chenrezig, bodhisattva of compassion, stops the car along the road to watch children play soccer
• Two on two
• What were once pebbles are now cliffs
• Last prayer.