Bin Laden's Bald Spot: & Other Stories

by Brian Doyle

A collection of humorous short stories from the award-winning author of The Plover and Mink River. Welcome to the peculiar, headlong world of Brian Doyle’s fiction, where the odd is happening all the time, reported upon by characters of every sort and stripe. Swirling voices and skeins of story, laughter and rage, ferocious attention to detail and sweeping nuttiness, tears and chortling—these stories will remind readers of the late giant David Foster Wallace, in their straightforward accounts of anything-but-straightforward events; of modern short story pioneer Raymond Carver, a bit, in their blunt, unadorned dialogue; and of Julia Whitty, a bit, in their willingness to believe what is happening, even if it absolutely shouldn’t be. Funny, piercing, unique, memorable, this is a collection of stories readers will find nearly impossible to forget.“To read Brian Doyle is to apprehend, all at once, the force that drives Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman, and James Joyce, and Emily Dickinson, and Francis of Assisi, and Jonah under his gourd. Brian Doyle is an extraordinary writer whose tales will endure. The sublime ‘Waking the Bishop’ is going to inhabit American anthologies forever and ever.” —Cynthia Ozick, New York Times–bestselling author of Heir to the Glimmering World  “What I like about Brian Doyle’s writing is that it’s real—it’s got mud and blood and tears but it’s also got earthly angels who teach him to grasp on to each small epiphany as it opens before him.” —Martin Flanagan, author of The Call and The Art of Pollination

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature

222 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Doyle's essays and poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The American Scholar, Orion, Commonweal, and The Georgia Review, among other magazines and journals, and in The Times of London, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Kansas City Star, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Ottawa Citizen, and Newsday, among other newspapers. He was a book reviewer for The Oregonian and a contributing essayist to both Eureka Street magazine and The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia.

Doyle's essays have also been reprinted in:

* the Best American Essays anthologies of 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2005;
* in Best Spiritual Writing 1999, 2001, 2002, and 2005; and
* in Best Essays Northwest (2003);
* and in a dozen other anthologies and writing textbooks.

As for awards and honors, he had three startling children, an incomprehensible and fascinating marriage, and he was named to the 1983 Newton (Massachusetts) Men's Basketball League all-star team, and that was a really tough league.

Doyle delivered many dozens of peculiar and muttered speeches and lectures and rants about writing and stuttering grace at a variety of venues, among them Australian Catholic University and Xavier College (both in Melbourne, Australia), Aquinas Academy (in Sydney, Australia); Washington State, Seattle Pacific, Oregon, Utah State, Concordia, and Marylhurst universities; Boston, Lewis & Clark, and Linfield colleges; the universities of Utah, Oregon, Pittsburgh, and Portland; KBOO radio (Portland), ABC and 3AW radio (Australia); the College Theology Society; National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation," and in the PBS film Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero (2002).

Doyle was a native of New York, was fitfully educated at the University of Notre Dame, and was a magazine and newspaper journalist in Portland, Boston, and Chicago for more than twenty years. He was living in Portland, Oregon, with his family when died at age 60 from complications related to a brain tumor.

Reviews

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable collection of short stories by a fun and imaginative story teller. Two stories stood out: "The Man Who Wanted to Live in the Library" (which resonated with me) and "Yoda" (a really dear tale). Didn't enjoy this book as much as his novel "Chicago: A Novel" which probably requires one to have lived in Chicago and/or to just enjoy the fantasy of a talking dog, but with the untimely death of this treasured, delightful writer we have only a set amount of tales to choose from and enjoy.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a writer who will grab your attention and not let go. I usually read short story collections in stages because it's like eating rich food -- too much and you get sick of it.

This collection just moved easily from one piece to the next and I enjoyed almost all of them. The characters are well-drawn without the feeling of "oh, he's drawing the character here". Boyle's characters are stupid and courageous and lost and wise. He moves in wickedly funny and moving ways to illustrate what it is to be excruciatingly human.

One of my favorites is "Pinching Bernie" which lambasts the Catholic church's cover up of sexual abuse. The piece's energy is jump-started with a passionate opening sentence that lasts a whole paragraph. The book isn't about hammering Catholics, though. There is a lovely piece called "Walking the Bishop" that takes place at the funeral of a well-loved priest.

Read this one: Brian Doyle is an author to watch.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brian Doyle was a brilliant and charming man, a gem among Portland, Oregon’s many writers. I wept when he died of a brain tumor in 2017. That said, sometimes I want to scream, “Brian, put a period in somewhere! Start a new paragraph already!” With page-long paragraphs and sentences that go on for days, it took me a while to get through this book of short stories. Yet that was part of his genius. I heard him read several times. He wrote like he read, building phrase upon phrase to a hysterical crescendo, ending in laughter or tears. On the page, it’s more difficult to take in. But these stories are so fresh and sassy. “Bin Laden’s Bald Spot” is a short irreverent riff from Bin Laden’s barber. “The Greyhound Bus is Your Mother and Father” tells of an orphan found as an infant on a Greyhound who then devotes his life to the bus company. “The Man Who Wanted to Live in the Library” tell the story of a man who can’t get enough of that institution, and “Ramon Martinez Tells What Happened That Day” suggests that on 9/11, a teenage boy intercepted a fifth plane aiming to attack the U.S. In “Pinching Bernie,” Doyle, an ardent Catholic who also wrote books of prayers and devotions, suggests what could have happened to the former Archbishop of Boston who was found to have covered up thousands of sexual abuses by priests in his archdiocese. Quirky, audacious, unique. This is vintage Doyle. Take a deep breath and dive in.

[Kath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories (some very short) that were all great with the exception of like two. Many funny, many poignant and lots that roamed around with great internal or external dialogue. A few with a dark turn but all enjoyable.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not like this as much as I wanted to.

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best short story collections I've ever read. God, I miss this guy.

[Don Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

A somewhat strange collection of this remarkable authors short stories. Worthwhile but not real special.

[Brigham Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

delightful short stories by one of my favorite authors

[John McPhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brian Doyle RIP wrote more than two dozen books and this small collection of irreverence is now my latest new favorite. So many priceless insights for all of us …

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bin Laden's Bald Spot is full of losers, starting with the title character, whom Brian Doyle presciently describes as "a creature of the dark, a thing that squirms and quails and dies when pierced by the brilliant snarl of the sun." Most of Doyle's losers, though, are more easy-going than the bygone bearded bastard. Take Pete, for example, the narrative target of "Do You Think We Should Pull Over?" (the answer to that question, by the way, is "yes, Pete. Yes, we should."). Despite Pete's woefully bad luck with cars (this story contains the immortal line, "Another time he had a car, this was another Buick, which a dog got stuck to,"), he—Pete, that is, not the dog—remains relatively unruffled.

These relaxed tales take you inside the heads of characters as diverse as Osama bin Laden's barber; the guy who pinched Bernard Francis, Cardinal Law, for good reason and to good effect; Chino from West Side Story; and the unnamed caveman who invented soap. Okay, I made that last one up, but my point is that this guy Doyle's got some range, know what I'm sayin'?

But bin Laden and his bald spot in fact take up just a few pages of Doyle's collection, front and back, which is otherwise filled with short but richly-imagined tales, often in the first person and told with easy vernacular, of cars and dogs and old girlfriends, brothers and sisters and convenience store encounters... the day-to-day lives of people you see every day. That Doyle can invest such subjects with wit and originality time after time... that's what makes this slim volume worth reading.

[Kat Masek · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of stories gives a wide range of Brian Doyle's moods and abilities. I adore him, so for me it was a must-read: I scrape the available print and digital media for any sign of things he's read to fill the spaces between his major publications. There is hilarity is this collection, and heartbreak, just as there is in any of his works, so I recommend it to any Brian Doyle fan, which in my opinion should be everyone. There's something else I have to say, because I haven't come over to the side of using digital readers (I don't have one). This book is published by Red Hen Press in Pasadena, and they've done something just sensuously wonderful with the cover. I could spend regular time feeling the texture of the cover of this book. It's difficult to describe: it's not slick, definitely. It's beauuuutifully produced. There is a large difference between digital and print media. This physicality of this book will convince you.

[Dianah (onourpath) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not normally a fan of short story collections -- in fact, I hate them -- they're too insignificant, too shallow, too constrained. Yet, it seems that anything Brian Doyle writes is instantly able to hook me. Here you have the quirkiest collection of characters that have ever been cobbled together (Bin Laden's barber, anyone?). Doyle managed to circumvent my entrenched bias and made me a believer in the absolute perfection of a short story written well. If you haven't read him, do yourself a favor and pick up anything he's done; enjoy the meandering, quixotic and singular musings of Portland's own Brian Doyle.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found these stories totally refreshing. They were at times hilarious, at times sad. The subjects were so varied that I was always pleasantly surprised when I started a new story. The author is clever, irreverent, outrageous. For devoted readers I recommend the story "The Man Who Wanted to Live in a Library." What a hoot. It carries to an extreme the personalities of all of us who haunt our local libraries and monopolize the time of our friendly librarians as we always want to shoot the breeze about what we've just read or are reading. I can't think of any other author who thought to make a story about Osama Bin Laden's hair...

[Jonathan Hiskes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spectacular, hilarious brief fiction. Doyle grants himself license to imagine anyone's life, including bin Laden's barber, and pulls it off. My favorites are King of the Losers, AAA Plus, The Boyfriends Bus, Waking the Bishop, Chino's Story, and A Confession, from which this: "You're not with me, here, Jack. I made a promise. You make a promise, you stick with it. Not because you promise someone else but because if you don't keep your promises there's no real you."

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional narrative voice, and one of those writers whose work I feel committed to read in its entirety. "The Man Who Wanted to Live in the Library" and the Confession and the story at the end about the priests--all of these are stories that will stick around, banging around consciousness I think for some time to come.

I can't imagine why I didn't discover him a long time ago, but if it's a good thing, it's never too early and never too late.

[John Orman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of very short stories is odd and quirky, but in a good, entertaining way.

I especially liked the story "The Man Who Wanted to Live in the Library."
A man is so obsessed with libraries and their books, he not only wants to spend all his time there, but even wants his cremains to be distributed in several libraries!

The "Bin Laden's Bald Spot" story is told from the perspective of the terrorist's barber, who should know! Oh, yes, there is also a crewcut under that turban.

[(a)lyss(a) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I was standing in the hallway by the coats and I had this powerful urge to just cover myself with the coats for a few months."

This is another strange and delightful collection of stories. Invoking both familiar and out of place feelings in day to day life this collection is told by and about interesting people.

We get to see clips inside peoples lives and their thoughts and accomplishments. Some of the stories start to blend together but overall it's a hearty collection.

[Brittany Wilmes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brian Doyle's sweet, galloping stories are told in the effortless rambling manner he so artfully embraces in all genres of his writing. I appreciated the unique perspectives and insights, but I spent the first several stories reminding myself that his narrators were characters, not himself. This collection of short stories is a quirky look at life through broken and blessed eyes.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably more like a 3.5, but mostly just because I don't think I really like short stories very much rather than to the execution of these particular stories. These were good, quirky stories, and you actually got a good feel for the characters even in just a few pages, which is a gift when it comes to short stories.

[Noah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to say about these stories. I think I read them like listening to a new album from a favorite band; expectations getting in the way of really hearing it. I'll read them again and then tell you what I think.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is something really appealing about these stories. They're kind of weird! Each story seems impossibly short, and somehow within their 3-4 pages the characters' personalities come through. The stories are chatty, often rambling and a lot of fun.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of the book should be "You Know What I'm Saying?" because that line appears over and over, for some reason. Some of the stories are 5-star worthy, including King of the Losers, AAA Plus, Hurtgen, Mule, The Fox, and The Man Who Wanted to Live in the Library.

[Jennifer Pullen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brian Doyle was a fine writer who is so missed. These stories have an incandescent, compassionate, and sometimes humorous voice. However, many of them feel a bit incomplete to me. Good work, but not Doyle's best. A few of the stories in this collection, however, are transcendent.

[PLOP! · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bin Laden’s Bald Spot & Other Stories is an evolution in prose and somewhere, someone has gone and blessed Brian Doyle, if only for being one of the few writers who truly understands fiction.

[Lori]

from publisher

[Valley Cottage Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quirky and refreshingly sweet short stories told by lovable narrators. Seriously, you will love these guys.

[Marty Wolk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am loving these short short stories, tightly packed with action. The intensity of TC Boyle, with the economy of words of Raymond Carver.

[Mary Dansak · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Brian Doyle. More delightful stories.

[Amy M · Rating 4 out of 5]

quirky & indelible. a punch to the gut. a great mashup of the subtleties & complexities of life & its characters. & here's to Dennis Dennis, may he rest in pieces.