BRIAN DOYLE is the editor of Portland Magazine. His work has been widely published in journals such as the Atlantic Monthly, the American Scholar, Harper's, Christian Century, Commonweal, and America. His previous collections of essays are Leaping, Credo, Saints Passionate and Peculiar, and Two Voices (written with his father, Jim Doyle), and he is the editor of God Is Love: Essays from Portland Magazine.
Brian Doyle's ability to praise without fawning, his Irish ear for lyric and wit, and his nose for the mythic dimension of Everyman lend these portraits a collective power I associate with fine novels. Doyle is a master of what jazz players call polytonality. His portraits of Morrison and Desmond are worthy of Plutarch; his Plutarch is worthy of Stevenson; his Stevenson doubles interest in Haggard; his nobodies share traits of his Greats and his Greats delight us with their nobodiness. In an era of critical portraits bent on stripping men of genius down to their Homer Simpson idiocies and boxer shorts, these intricate celebrations of flawed but genuine heroes are a delight. -- David James Duncan, The author of The Brothers K and The River Why. Among these splendid essays my two favorite were about encounters with the poet Billy Blake, and the equally astonishing Van Morrison. Or, perhaps, they were all favorites, they are so full of Brian Doyle's energetic language, his vibrancy, his loving adventures into friendship and admiration. -- Mary Oliver, The author of American Primitive
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