essays by brian doyle

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Brian Doyle Noticed the Little Things. His Book Reminds Us We Should Too.

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By Margaret Renkl

• Dec. 3, 2019

ONE LONG RIVER OF SONG Notes on Wonder By Brian Doyle

If you are in love with language, here is how you will read Brian Doyle’s posthumous collection of essays: by underlining sentences and double-underlining other sentences; by sometimes shading in the space between the two sets of lines so as to create a kind of D.I.Y. bolded font; by marking whole astonishing paragraphs with a squiggly line in the margin, and by highlighting many of those squiggle-marked sections with a star to identify the best of the astonishing lines therein; by circling particularly original or apt phrases, like “this blistering perfect terrible world” and “the chalky exhausted shiver of my soul” and “the most arrant glib foolish nonsense and frippery”; and, finally, by dog-earing whole pages, and then whole essays, because there is not enough ink in the world to do justice to such annotations, slim as this book is and so full of white space, too.

Brian Doyle died in 2017 at 60 of complications from a brain tumor. He left behind seven novels, six collections of poems and 13 essay collections. The whole time he was writing, he was also working full time as the editor of Portland Magazine.

[ This collection was one of our most anticipated books of December. See the full list . ]

It’s an amazing creative output, but Doyle was never famous. In 2012 The Iowa Review called him “a writer’s writer , unknown to the best-seller or even the good-seller lists, a Townes Van Zandt of essayists, known by those in the know .” If there is a God — and Doyle fervently believed there is — “One Long River of Song” will change all that. This book is what Van Zandt’s greatest hits would look like had he lived to be 60, and if every song on the record hit the bar set by “ Pancho and Lefty .”

Doyle was a practicing Catholic who wrote frequently about his faith, but this book carries not a whiff of sanctity or orthodoxy. The God of “One Long River of Song” is a kindergartner wearing a stegosaurus hat, a United States postal worker with preternatural patience (“God was manning the counter from 1 to 5, as he does every blessed day”), the “coherent mercy” that cannot be apprehended but may be perceived by way of “the music in and through and under all things.”

God’s acolyte is Doyle himself, missing not a single gorgeous blessing in a life so full of love it spilled over into essay after essay after essay. This book is made up almost entirely of praise songs, often for the people Doyle loved — wife, children, parents, brothers, sisters, friends — but just as often for the natural world of shrews and hummingbirds and hawks and sturgeon and fishers and great blue herons and pretty much every other creature he happened to encounter. Doyle was a writer “made of love and song and amusement.” Every living thing intrigued him and was worthy of his powerful capacity for study and his equally powerful capacity for celebration.

But it would be a mistake to dismiss this writer as only a psalmist of birdsong and singing creek and the gentle, patient wisdom of postal workers. Doyle was also both hilarious and fierce, and I took as much pleasure from watching him address a denizen of the gun-rights coalition as “dear outraged shrieking lunatic,” or describe certain members of the Catholic hierarchy as “arrogant pompous nominal bosses issuing proclamations and denouncing dissent,” as I took from lingering over the loveliest descriptions of the natural world I have ever read.

In “The Greatest Nature Essay Ever,” Doyle sets out the principles of effective nature writing so succinctly that it is arguably a two-page master class in environmental writing. It also offers a fit description of the experience of reading this remarkable book: “a feeling eerily like a warm hand brushed against your cheek, and you sit there, near tears, smiling, and then you stand up. Changed.”

Margaret Renkl is a weekly contributing opinion writer for The Times and the author of “Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss.”

ONE LONG RIVER OF SONG Notes of Wonder for the Spiritual and Nonspiritual Alike By Brian Doyle 272 pp. Little, Brown & Company. $27.

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Brian Doyle’s diverse essays reflect his love affair with words . . . and God

Reviewed by Sister Mary Core, OSB

As I read “One Long River of Song,” a collection of Brian Doyle’s many essays, I wished I had personally known this man who had a “love affair” with words. In this one book alone, Doyle spews out every emotion imaginable, while writing in a style uniquely his own.

The title is so right, for each essay rolls along like water rippling over the rocks of a mountain spring: bright, bubbly, singing, raging and rushing forward, and filled with life ! Doyle plays with the words, as in:  “extraordinary ordinary succinct ancient naked stunning perfect simple ferocious love.” (page 12) As if, “one word won’t do, so here are 10 more.”

His diverse essays on 9-11 (Leap) and on a one-armed doll (Joey’s Doll’s Other Arm) both become, as do all his essays, a forum to speak of love and goodness and the mystery of God.

THE HAND OF GOD IN EVERYTHING

Doyle is an unabashed Catholic, whose writing is a cross between Sacred Scripture, the Catechism, poetry, the ripple of a mountain stream and the hum of a busy, bumble bee.

Brian Doyle sees in everything — the hand of God. Each essay beckons the reader to look more deeply into the mystery of life. Each essay, often based on a simple, everyday occurrence, is viewed like a multi-faceted gem with a plethora of truths to tell.

Brian Doyle was a consummate storyteller who had an ability, a marvelous gift, for turning a word or words into magic. In the essay “His Last Game,” a simple drive to the pharmacy becomes an account of all that is experienced along the way as well as experiences of years past.

A very short and powerful essay called “100th Street” recalls the gratitude and respect we all felt for those who put their lives on the line on 9/11.

A trip to the Post Office in “God Again” is an encounter with God in the guise of the patient Postal Worker behind the counter.

And then there are the few short lines of “Joey” which speak of a loving son putting on his father’s socks during his illness with “The Thing.”

ESSAYS THAT OPEN HEARTS, MINDS

In these often riveting essays Brian Doyle was able to write of family and friends, of nature, of human nature, of things small and insignificant, as well as large and looming. Each essay drew me in and left me feeling full.

Because it is a book of essays, I could read and savor a one-page story, — or linger over a much longer discourse on his children. No matter the length, each essay was on its own, a piece of wisdom, a period of laughter, a sobering thought, a delight to read, an “ah-ha” moment.

Brian Doyle was a relatively unknown author. His style of writing was unique and reflected his love of life, the written word, and his deeply rooted faith. Doyle said he loved to “catch and share” stories. “What could be holier and cooler than that?” he told The Oregonian. “Stories change lives; stories save lives. . . . They crack open hearts, they open minds.”

“One Long River of Song” did that for me. I hope it will do that for you.

Brian Doyle died before “One Long River of Song” was published. He passed away in May of 2017 from brain cancer. The book, a compilation of his many essays, was published in 2019 by his wife, Mary Miller Doyle.

I believe, over time, Brian Doyle’s writing will become more well-known and beloved. It is sad that his gift as a “tinker of words” ended too soon. “One Long River of Song” was my first encounter with the writings of Brian Doyle. It will not be my last.

MORE FROM BRIAN DOYLE

Other publications by Brian Doyle include:

• Doyle, Brian J.  The grail: a year ambling & shambling through an Oregon vineyard in pursuit of the best pinot noir wine in the whole wild world.  Corvallis: Oregon State Univ. Press, 2006.
• Mink River . New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2010.
• Bin Laden’s bald spot & other stories.  Pasadena, Calif.: Red Hen Press, 2011.
• The wet engine: exploring the mad wild miracle of the heart.  Corvallis: Oregon State Univ. Press, 2012.
• Children & other wild animals . Corvallis: Oregon State Univ. Press, 2014.
• Martin Marten.  New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015.
• The Plover . New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015.
• Chicago . New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016.
• The adventures of John Carson in several quarters of the world: a novel of Robert Louis Stevenson . New York: St. Martin’s, 2017.

Sister Mary Core, OSB

SISTER MARY CORE, OSB, is a member of the Sisters of St. Benedict of St. Mary Monastery in Rock Island. She leads a woman’s book club for St. Maria Goretti Parish, Coal Valley, and Mary, Our Lady of Peace Parish in Orion.

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