R. M. Ryan

R. M. Ryan (born 1945 in Wisconsin) is the author of Vaudeville in the Dark, (2010) which was lauded by the New York Times as having been "written at the juncture of rapture and rupture."^[1] He is also the author of an earlier volume of poetry called Goldilocks in Later Life (1980) and a novel called The Golden Rules (2002).

R. M. Ryan’s latest book is an autobiographical novel called There’s A Man With a Gun Over There. It is based on his experiences in the US Army as a detective and translator investigating black marketing in Germany during the Vietnam era. Trained as poet and drafted into the military, Ryan is a kind of innocent abroad as he learns the very high price of essentially becoming a fascist for the American Empire and the remnants of Nazi Germany. Nominated by its publisher for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, There’s a Man With a Gun Over There is about what could happen to anyone in the US Army, and a cautionary tale about America’s War Machine. Publisher Martin Shepard describes the author as "the Norman Mailer of this generation." Poet, screenwriter, playwright, and winner of a “Genuis” Award from the MacArthur Foundation, Naomi Wallace comments that in reading the novel she is astonished by "the battle of consciousness Ryan has with himself concerning right, wrong, war, lies: all are in continuous flux and deeply alive."

In an interview with Ryan, Carol Polsgrove, author of Divided Minds: Intellectuals and the Civil Rights Movement and Professor Emerita at The Indiana University School of Journalism, comments: "R.M. Ryan’s poems are not for the faint of heart. They saunter, they soar, they dive down to despair. Vaudeville in the Dark brings together poems written over the last thirty years – since his publisher, Louisiana State University Press, brought out his first volume in 1980. That was right after he abandoned graduate school for stockbroking, which he has now abandoned for a writer’s life."^[2]

For six years, Ryan was the lyricist for the northern California rock-and-roll band The Thugz and wrote many of the songs on their two CD’s released by Puffin records—Goin’ To Town (2009) and Peace of Mind (2011).^[3]

Ryan also founded firestarter press, which publishes eccentric artifacts by writers such as Mark Strand, Tobias Wolff, Fred Chappell, John Koethe, and Abby Frucht.

Ryan is married to the biographer Carol Sklenicka, author of Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life. He divides his time between Wisconsin, San Francisco, and the Sonoma Coast of California

References

• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/books/19poetry.html
• http://carolpolsgrove.com/interviewr-m-ryan
• https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2015/10/08/a-former-army-mp-discusses-the-draft-avoiding-combat-and-wartime-scars/

Bibliography

Goldilocks in Later Life. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980.

The Golden Rules. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002.

Vaudeville in the Dark. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010.

There's a Man with a Gun Over There. Sag Harbor: Permanent Press, 2015.