He lived with his wife and three children in Portland, Oregon. In May 2017, he died at the age of 60 due to a brain tumor.[3][5]
Early life and career
He was born in 1956 in New York City to an Irish Catholic family.[4] His mother, Ethel Clancey Doyle, was a teacher, and his father, James Doyle, was a journalist.[6] Doyle credits becoming a writer to his father:
But in almost every class I am asked how I became a writer, and after I make my usual joke about it being a benign neurosis, as my late friend George Higgins once told me, I usually talk about my dad. My dad was a newspaperman, and still is, at age 92, a man of great grace and patience and dignity, and he taught me immensely valuable lessons. If you wish to be a writer, write, he would say. There are people who talk about writing and then there are people who sit down and type. Writing is fast typing. Also you must read like you are starving for ink. Read widely. Read everything. Read the Bible once a year or so, ideally the King James, to be reminded that rhythm and cadence are your friends as a writer. Most religious writing is terrible whereas some spiritual writing is stunning. The New Testament in the King James version, for example.
—Brian Doyle, writing in The American Scholar (August 23, 2013)[7]
Before moving to Oregon, Doyle worked at the U.S. Catholic and Boston College magazines.[6] He later married artist Mary Miller.[6] They would go on to have three children, a daughter and twin sons, who often inspired Doyle's work.[8]
The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson (2017)[10]
Nonfiction
Two Voices: A Father and Son Discuss Family and Faith (1996)[4]
Credo:Essays on Grace, Altar Boys, Bees, Kneeling, Saints, the Mass, Priests, Strong Women, Epiphanies, A Wake, and the Haunting Thin Energetic Dusty Figure of Jesus the Christ (1999) Saint Mary's Press Winona MN[9]
Saints Passionate and Peculiar: Brief Exuberant Essays for Teens (2002)[9]
The Wet Engine: Exploring the Mad Wild Miracle of the Heart (2005)[4][9]
The Grail: A Year Ambling and Shambling through an Oregon Vineyard in Pursuit of the Best Pinot Noir Wine in the Whole Wide World (2006)[4][9]
Grace Notes: True Stories about Sins, Sons, Shrines, Silence, Marriage, Homework, Jail, Miracles, Dads, Legs, Basketball, the Sinewy Grace of Women, Bullets, Music, Infirmaries, the Power of Powerlessness, the Ubiquity of Prayers, & Some Other Matters (2011)[9]
The Thorny Grace of It: And Other Essays for Imperfect Catholics (2013)