RaveOrion MagazineCreating a book from a stack of essays requires the mosaic artistry of a stained glass window. The editors select a piece that is full of light and rich in color, maybe a small story about a post office clerk. They shape it, smooth its edges, and choose its place next to another luminous story, maybe about free beer. And so it goes, one brilliant cobalt or ruby pane after another; maybe this next is a story about the smell of low tide. Finally, all the small pieces—each a beautiful, true thing in itself—together create a larger picture that is true in an entirely new and astonishing way. What truth is revealed when the light shines through the collected essays of Brian Doyle? Maybe this: You might think that your days are unremarkable. You would be wrong. Each day is full of wild and wonderful gifts ... Combined in One Long River of Song, Brian’s glowing essays create a vision of what a good person might be, what a good life surely is, a larger story of the transformative power of joyful gratitude.
