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Patrick Ryan

Biography

Patrick Ryan

Patrick Ryan is the author of the novel BUCKEYE. He is also the author of the story collections THE DREAM LIFE OF ASTRONAUTS (named one of the Best Books of the Year by the St. Louis Times-Dispatch, LitHub, Refinery 29 and Electric Literature, and longlisted for The Story Prize) and SEND ME. His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, the anthology TALE OF TWO CITIES and elsewhere. The former associate editor of Granta, he is the editor of the literary magazine One Story and lives in New York City.

Patrick Ryan

Books by Patrick Ryan

by Patrick Ryan - Fiction, Historical Fiction

In Bonhomie, Ohio, a stolen moment of passion, sparked in the exuberant aftermath of the Allied victory in Europe, binds Cal Jenkins, a man wounded not in war but by his inability to serve in it, to Margaret Salt, a woman trying to obscure her past. Cal’s wife, Becky, has a spiritual gift: She is a seer who can conjure the dead, helping families connect with those they’ve lost. Margaret’s husband, Felix, is serving on a Navy cargo ship, out of harm’s way --- until a telegram suggests that the unthinkable might have happened. Later, as the country reconstructs in the postwar boom, a secret grows in Bonhomie --- but nothing stays buried forever in a small town. The consequences of that long-ago encounter ripple through the next generation of both families, compelling them to reexamine who they thought they were and what the future might hold.

by Patrick Ryan - Fiction, Short Stories

A would-be Miss America auditions for a shady local talent scout over vodka and Sunny D; a NASA engineer begins to wonder if the woman he’s having an affair with is slowly poisoning her husband; a Boy Scout troop leader, recovering from a stroke, tries to protect one of his scouts from being bullied by his own sons; a grandmother, sentenced to driver’s ed after a traffic accident, surprises herself by falling for her instructor. THE DREAM LIFE OF ASTRONAUTS balances heartbreak with wry humor as its characters try to make sense of the paths they find themselves on.