Get to know our author of our book of the month for September, Patrick Ryan. Patrick’s short story collection The Dream Life of Astronauts was named one of the Best Books of the Year by the St. Louis Times-Dispatch, LitHub, Refinery 29 and Electric Literature, and was longlisted for The Story Prize. His debut collection of linked short stories, Send Me, was chosen for Barnes & Noble’s Discover New Writers program. His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, the anthology Tales of Two Cities, and elsewhere. The former associate editor of Granta, he is the editor-in-chief of the literary magazine One Story. He lives in New York City.
- To begin with why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?
I was born in Washington, D.C. When I was still a toddler, in 1968, my parents moved us down to Florida, and they both took jobs at NASA. My mother was a secretary; my father checked out camera equipment to the photographers who were documenting the Apollo program. I grew up about thirty miles from the launch pads and watched the rockets go up from the foot of our driveway.
I attended Florida State University for my undergraduate degree and Bowling Green State University in Ohio for my graduate degree. I’d been to Ohio somewhat regularly, growing up, because that’s where my father was raised and where my grandparents and aunt still lived, but graduate school brought me there for two-and-a-half years, and I loved how different it was from where I’d been raised.
2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?
What a great question. At twelve, I wanted to be either a cartoonist or an animator. All I did with my free time, other than watch television, was draw. By eighteen, I was solidly of a mind to become a writer. I’d been the editor of my high school’s literary magazine, and I thought I’d write books and work as an editor—which is exactly what I am currently doing. At thirty? To clarify: I didn’t become an editor until I was in my forties, so at thirty—still writing—I wanted to be someone who’d published a book, and I wanted to be someone was wasn’t a college freshman composition instructor by day and a bartender by night.
- What were three works of art – book or painting or piece of music, etc – you can now say had a great effect on you and influenced your own development as a writer?
The Collected Short Stories of Mark Twain. This book was given to me by my Ohio grandparents on my sixteenth birthday and was instrumental in my deciding to become a writer. I’d read fiction before, but that was the first time I started to become aware that writing could be both gritty and funny at the same time, and how characters could be drawn with just a few details. Also, I learned how satisfying a good short story can be.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The best novel about the United States that I’ve ever read. And just as relevant now as it was in 1939. Everything about what is wrong and what could be right in the U.S. is contained in that heartbreaking story.
Piano Etudes 1-20 by Philip Glass. I normally don’t listen to music when I write, but Philip Glass is an exception. These pieces and many others of his have been great “mood-adjusters,” in that they help pull me out of my own mood and set me back down into the mood of whatever scene I’m writing.
4. Please tell us about your novel (which is also our BOTM!), Buckeye.
I am thrilled to be your BOTM! Okay, here’s my elevator pitch (with no spoilers): Buckeye is an epic that begins at the moment of the allied victory in Europe during World War II and spans four decades. It tells the story of two families whose lives become intertwined and compacted by one bad decision and one big secret that will reshape their lives and the
generation to come. At its core is the idea that forgiveness is vital to our relationships, and that the road to forgiveness is often twisted, rocky, and uphill. Also, at the heart of Buckeye is the belief that, for as much as we’re defined by our good deeds, we’re also defined by what we do with our mistakes.
5. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?
I hope readers take from the book the importance of conveying to the people in our lives the love we feel for them, while we’re all still here to convey and receive it. I also hope the book makes an undeniable case for the value of empathy.
6. Whom do you most admire in the realm of writing and why?
So many people share that pedestal! I’ll pick just one to say something about: Elizabeth Strout. She’s able to get so much character out of a gesture, an expression, a line of dialogue. She’s brave enough to stay with the characters who interest her for as long as they want to stick around. The interweaving she’s done with the world of characters she’s created is one of the greatest literary achievements I can think of. She’s a phenomenal short story writer, and I found it breathtaking when she brought all of those characters together in her novel Tell Me Everything.
7. What advice would you give aspiring writers?
When you’re writing something, spend time with it every day. Even if it’s just for fifteen minutes of rereading. First thing in the morning, if possible. Do that and your project will have a better chance of staying with you while you do everything else. This is far better than only writing, say, one or two days a week, where you end up spending valuable writing time just refamiliarising yourself with what you’re trying to do. Write the stories and novels you want to write, even if you worry that they’re stupid, or irrelevant, or boring. Write the stories and novels you want to read.
Buckeye
May, 1945. As news of the Allied victory in Europe reaches the small town of Bonhomie, Ohio, a woman named Margaret Salt walks into a hardware store and asks the man behind the counter, Cal Jenkins, for a radio. What happens next will change both of their lives forever.
While the country reconstructs in the post-war boom, a secret grows in Bonhomie - and nothing can remain hidden in a small town. The consequences of that long-ago encounter will intertwine the fates of two families, rippling through the next generation and compelling them to re-examine who they thought they were and what the future might hold.
Full of compassion, humour and charm, Buckeye is a dazzling portrait of the human spirit by way of one unforgettable community; the twisted roads we take to achieve forgiveness and redemption; and above all a universal longing for love and connection.
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