It's Out!

Now available on Amazon, The Education of Stuart McGrath. In paperback or Kindle. Grab a copy today right here

Stuart McGrath, the mayor’s erstwhile assistant, tells the tale of his meteoric rise (don’t meteors fall?) from volunteer campaign worker to chief of staff for third term Mayor Nathan Higgins. With a new degree in political science, Stuart is fascinated by electoral politics and Scranton, and when he gets the opportunity to fuse them by appointment as the high titled but low paid chief of staff to the mayor, his real education begins.

In the style of political satirists Christopher Buckley and P.J. O’Rourke, Gary Ryman looks at small city America as personified by Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Hard scrabble fading coal town, Joe Biden blue collar mecca, home of Dunder Mifflin paper, Scranton is all of these and none of these.  City government is however, a combination soap opera and situation comedy and Stuart is up for best supporting actor. With inspiration from television and newspapers—sources of questionable accuracy at best—Ryman puts his own spin on how the city runs (or doesn’t). 

The Education of Stuart McGrath

A New Novel On The Way!

I treat announcements like this with the importance of the birth of a child, an engagement, election of a Pope, or a projected retirement date—that one’s looking more important every day. Recognizing that others do not consider such news in the same categories, I humbly ask you to read on anyway, and share with your friends. 

Coming soon—which means hopefully within a month or so—my new novel, The Education of Stuart McGrath. This book enters new ground for me, political satire. While I profess no expertise in the political arena, in fact just the opposite—profound ignorance—I can read a newspaper and view the internet with the best of them. These days, that’s all I needed to inspire this work. 

So what’s it about? Stuart McGrath, the mayor’s erstwhile assistant, tells the tale of his meteoric rise (don’t meteors fall?) from volunteer campaign worker to chief of staff for third term Mayor Nathan Higgins. With a new degree in political science, Stuart is fascinated by electoral politics and Scranton, and when he gets the opportunity to fuse them by appointment as the high titled but low paid chief of staff to the mayor, his real education begins. Hard scrabble fading coal town, Joe Biden blue collar mecca, home of Dunder Mifflin paper, Scranton is all of these and none of these.  City government is however, a combination soap opera and situation comedy and Stuart is up for best supporting actor.

Updates will follow and as soon as I know more about the schedule, so will you. 

A Writing Update

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing.  To the contrary, in the last few months I’ve completed the first draft of Fire In His Bones, which is the working title for the sequel to Mayday! Firefighter Down.  Editing and a second draft is well underway on this manuscript and I’m jotting down ideas for the third and final book in the series.  In Fire In His Bones, Dave Michaels fans can follow him with his promotion to Captain and assignment as the company commander of the elite Squad 1.  It will be an exciting ride…

At the same time, I’ve finished the first draft of another novel on a non-fire topic, which allowed me to creatively stretch a bit.  This book, entitled The Education of Stuart McGrath, is political satire set in the satirical gold mine which is Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Stuart is a young grad school political junkie who by the force of sheer competence, an unusual commodity in Scranton electoral politics, and a cheap salary, rises to the illustrious if deceiving position of Chief of Staff to the mayor.  This manuscript is fermenting in the bottom drawer of my desk for another few weeks before I begin the revision process, but I’m excited to take a fresh pass at what I hope will be a fun book. 

Time to fire up the coffee and get back to work….