So Very Much The Best Of Us

In this brand new compilation of some of Brian Doyle's best stories that have appeared in various publications throughout the world, Doyle explores the promise of Catholicism in America that he has experienced and observed from his childhood through today.

If you are like me, which God forbid such a sorry penance, you find yourself contemplating That or Whom which we call God (for lack of a better label) on a regular basis, and I do not mean church on Sunday. I mean daily, thrice daily, five times daily and twice at night, because you know, down under sense and logic and reason, that there is a Singing, a Breathing, a Mercy beyond accounting under and through all things; and you wish to love and thank Whatever or Whomever this is; and, in fact, if you are honest with yourself, you find that you no longer wish to be granted favors, as you did when you were young, but rather you wish quietly to put your small gifts in harness to Whomever’s agenda, because you know now, after fifty years, that it is all about love, and that is why we are here, and life is short, and you had better work as hard as you can for love, which is another word for That or Whom.

Some of the eighty stories in So Very Much the Best of Us include:

• Confirmation Day
• Best Napper of the Year
• How to Love Your Neighbor Who is a Roaring Idiot or Even Worse
• Visitation Day
• A Song for Nurses
• How to Hit Your Dad
• Swallowing an Otter
• Little Kids in Mass
• The Rude Burl of Our Masks
• Like the Dew that Blesses the Grass
• The Manner of His Murder
• Librarious, and
• The Most Beautiful Boat There Ever Was.