C. D. B. Bryan

He was born on April 22, 1936, in Manhattan, New York City. His parents were Joseph Bryan III and Katharine Barnes Bryan; after they divorced his mother married author John O'Hara.{{cite web |last1=Tarter |first1=Brent |title=Joseph Bryan III (1904–1993) |url=http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Bryan_Joseph_III_1904-1993 |access-date=August 5, 2015 |publisher=Encyclopedia Virginia}}

Bryan attended Berkshire School in the class of 1954 and earned a Bachelor of Arts at Yale University in 1958, where he wrote for campus humor magazine The Yale Record.Bryan, C.D.B. (1958). "Son of a Beach". The Yale Record. New Haven: Yale Record. He was also a member of the fraternity St. Anthony Hall.[https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.stanthonyhall.org/resource/resmgr/reviews/spring_2010.pdf Friendly Fire: The Literary Achievement of Bro. C.D.B. Bryan]," (PDF). The Review. St. Anthony Hall. Spring: 11. 2010.

He served in the U.S. Army in South Korea (1958–1960), but not happily. He was mobilized again (1961–1962) for the Berlin Crisis of 1961.

{{cite magazine |title=A Prize Case of Angst

|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,839277,00.html

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110203162721/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,839277,00.html

|url-status=dead

|archive-date=February 3, 2011

|magazine=Time

|date=February 5, 1965 |access-date=1 April 2009

|quote=Novelist Bryan, John O'Hara's stepson, was educated at Yale, served in the Army during the peacetime occupation of Korea, and after his discharge was caught in the call-up of reservists during the 1961 Berlin crisis.}}

{{cite book |first=James |last=Wade |author-link=James Wade

|title=One Man's Korea

|year=1967

|location=Seoul |page=231 |quote=In 1965, as South Korea entered its export-led take-off, C.D.B. Bryan wrote that "this is the foulest, goddamndest country I've ever seen!" The only thing that made Korea bearable, he thought, was "the availability of women"

}} cited in

{{cite web

|url=http://www.jpri.org/publications/occasionalpapers/op31.html

|title=Some Thoughts on the Korean-American Relationship

|access-date=1 April 2009 |first=Bruce |last=Cumings |author-link=Bruce Cumings |date= May 2003

|work=JPRI Occasional Paper No. 31

|publisher=Japan Policy Research Institute at the University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim

}} He was an intelligence officer.{{Citation needed|date=March 2009}}

Bryan sold his first short story to The New Yorker in 1961.About the author. [https://archive.org/details/closeencounterso00brya/page/n3/ Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: A Reporter's Notebook on Alien Abduction, UFOs and the Conference at M.I.T.] New York City: Arkana Publishing, 1995. {{ISBN|0140195270}} / {{ISBN|978-0140195279}}.

He was editor of the satirical Monocle (from 1961 until 1965), Colorado State University writer-in-residence (winter 1967), visiting lecturer University of Iowa writers workshop (1967–1969), special editorial consultant at Yale (1970), visiting professor at the University of Wyoming (1975), adjunct professor Columbia University (1976), fiction director at the New York City Writers Community from (1977), lecturer in English at University of Virginia (spring 1983), and Bard Center fellow at Bard College (spring 1984).

{{cite web|url=http://kostasvoyatzis.wordpress.com/2007/03/03/the-other-monocle-an-article-by-steven-heller/|title=The Other Monocle, an article by Steven Heller|access-date=31 March 2009|author=Steven Heller|author-link=Steven Heller (graphic design)|date=March 3, 2007|quote=Monocle was started while Navasky was still a student at Yale during the tail end of the McCarthy period. ... Their trenchantly witty writers included some of today's literary and social comedic luminaries, Calvin Trillin, C. D. B. Bryan, Dan Wakefield, Neil Postman, Richard Lingeman, Dan Greenberg, and humorist Marvin Kitman|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090621003624/http://kostasvoyatzis.wordpress.com/2007/03/03/the-other-monocle-an-article-by-steven-heller/|archive-date=June 21, 2009}}

His first novel, P. S. Wilkinson, won the Harper Prize in 1965.

Bryan is best known for his non-fiction book Friendly Fire (1976). It began as an idea he sold to William Shawn for an article in The New Yorker, then grew into a series of articles, and then a book. It describes an Iowa farm family, Gene and Peg Mullen, and their reaction and change of heart after their son's accidental death by friendly fire in the Vietnam War.

{{cite magazine |first=R. Z. |last=Sheppard |title=Prairie Protest

|url=http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,914094,00.html

|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130204113831/http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,914094,00.html

|url-status=dead

|archive-date=February 4, 2013

|magazine=Time

|date=April 19, 1976 |access-date=31 March 2009

}}

{{cite book |first=Edd |last=Applegate

|title=Literary journalism: a biographical dictionary of writers and editors

|url=https://archive.org/details/literaryjournali00appl

|url-access=registration |access-date=31 March 2009 |edition=illustrated

|year=1996

|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-29949-0

|pages=[https://archive.org/details/literaryjournali00appl/page/35 35]–36 |chapter=C.D.B. Bryan }}

One of the real-life characters featured in the book was future Operation Desert Storm commander H. Norman Schwarzkopf.

It was made into an Emmy-winning 1979 television movie of the same name, for which Bryan shared a Peabody Award. It has also been cited in professional military studies.

{{cite journal | author=Lt Col Charles R. Shrader, U.S. Army | date=December 1982 | title=Amicide: The Problem of Friendly Fire in War | journal=Combat Studies Institute
Research Survey No. 1 | publisher=U.S. Army Command and General Staff College | location=Fort Leavenworth, Kansas | url=http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/shrader/shrader.asp | access-date=31 March 2009 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090330072047/http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/shrader/shrader.asp | archive-date=March 30, 2009 }}

Bryan died from cancer on December 15, 2009, at his home in Guilford, Connecticut.Bruce Weber. [https://archive.today/20120908124730/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/books/18bryan.html?_r=1 "C. Bryan, 73, 'Friendly Fire' Writer, Dies."] The New York Times, December 17, 2009, p. A41. Archived from [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/books/18bryan.html the original.]

Bryan contributed articles to many periodicals, including The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Esquire, Harper's, Saturday Review, and The Weekly Standard. He additionally author the narration for the 1963 Swedish film The Face of War.

Books (non-fiction)

• [https://archive.org/details/friendlyfire000brya/ Friendly Fire.] New York City: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1976.Sherrill, Robert. [https://archive.today/20201228085643/https://www.nytimes.com/1976/05/09/archives/friendly-fire.html "Friendly Fire."] Review of Friendly Fire by C. D. B. Bryan. The New York Times, May 9, 1976, pp. 199-200. Archived from [https://www.nytimes.com/1976/05/09/archives/friendly-fire.html the original.]

::Adapted by Fay Kanin into the 1979 television movie of the same name. A Book-of-the-Month Club selected alternate.

• [https://archive.org/details/nationalairspace00brya The National Air and Space Museum.] New York City: Abrams Books, 1979.

::A Book-of-the-Month Club selected alternate. Second edition included photographs by Jonathan Wallen, 1988.

• [https://archive.org/details/nationalgeograph00brya_0 The National Geographic Society: 100 Years of Adventure and Discovery.] New York City: Abrams Books, 1987.
• [https://archive.org/details/closeencounterso00brya Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Alien Abduction, UFOs and the Conference at M.I.T..] New York City: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. {{ISBN|0679429751}}.

Books (novels)

• [https://archive.org/details/pswilkinson00brya/ P. S. Wilkinson.] New York City: Harper & Row, 1965.

::"Portions of this novel appeared originally in The New Yorker."

• [https://archive.org/details/greatdethriffe0000brya The Great Dethriffe.] New York City: Dutton, 1970.
• [https://archive.org/details/beautifulwomenug00brya Beautiful Women; Ugly Scenes.] New York City: Doubleday, 1983. {{ISBN|0440305365}}.

::A Literary Guild alternate.

Book contributions

• "Introduction." [https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780810934603/ In the Eye of Desert Storm: Photographers of the Gulf War.] New York City: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. / Professional Photography Division of Eastman Kodak Company, 1991. {{ISBN|0810934604}} / {{ISBN|978-0810934603}}.

Book reviews

• "By War Possessed." Review of Winners and Losers by Gloria Emerson. Saturday Review, February 5, 1977, pp. 22-23.
• "Combat Junky." Review of A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo. Saturday Review, June 11, 1977, pp. 36-37.

Short stories

• "So Much Unfairness of Things." The New Yorker, June 2, 1962, p. 31. [https://archive.org/details/21greatstories00lass/ Full text available.]

::A Literary Guild selection.

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{{Refbegin|30em}}

Bibliography

• Connery, Thomas B. (ed.). Sourcebook of American Literary Journalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992.
• Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol 29. Detroit: Gale, 1984.
• Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 185: American Literary Journalists, 1945–1995. Detroit: Gale, 1997.
• Schroeder, Eric James. Vietnam, We've All Been There: Interviews with American Writers. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992.
• Sims, Norman (ed.). The Literary Journalists. New York City: Ballantine, 1984, p. 3.
• Atlantic, July 1976; August 1983.
• Atlantic Monthly, July 1976, p. 93; August 1983, pp. 96–98.
• Boston Herald, June 13, 1995.
• Chicago Tribune Book World, October 9, 1983.
• The Christian Science Monitor, June 11, 1976.
• Commonweal, February 19, 1965, pp. 672–673.
• Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 28, 1983.
• National Review, April 20, 1971.
• New Republic, November 7, 1970.
• Newsweek, November 23, 1970; May 17, 1976.
• The New Yorker, July 31, 1995.
• New York Review of Books, April 8, 1965; August 5, 1976, pp. 41–43.
• The New York Times, February 1, 1965; October 21, 1970; May 12, 1976; August 9, 1983.
• The New York Times Book Review, January 31, 1965, p. 4; November 1, 1970, pp. 46–47; May 9, 1976, pp. 1–2; October 14, 1979; August 28, 1983, pp. 10, 15; June 11, 1995.
• Publishers Weekly, April 24, 1995.
• Saturday Review, February 6, 1965; January 22, 1972; May 15, 1976.
• Time magazine, February 5, 1965, pp. 112, 114; April 19, 1976.
• Times Literary Supplement, October 7, 1965; December 29, 1972, p. 1573.
• The Washington Post, October 24, 1979; June 5, 1995.
• Washington Post Book World, December 27, 1970, p. 6; May 2, 1976, p. L5; August 21, 1983, p. 3.

{{Refend}}

• [http://saintbryantv.blogspot.com/ Boxes in the Attic] ("Stories discovered inside 67 boxes of books, letters, photos and other items left to me and my sisters by our father, author C.D.B. Bryan, who passed away in December of 2009") – reminiscences about Bryan by his son, Saint George Bryan.
• C. D. B. Bryan Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bryan, Courtlandt}}

Category:1936 births

Category:2009 deaths

Category:Deaths from cancer in Connecticut

Category:American male journalists

Category:Journalists from New York City

Category:United States Army officers

Category:Novelists from Connecticut

Category:Writers from New York City

Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:Military intelligence

Category:Hotchkiss School alumni

Category:Berkshire School alumni

Category:The Yale Record alumni

Category:American male novelists

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:Novelists from New York (state)

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:St. Anthony Hall