David McGlynn

“This stunning debut is a beautiful and riveting portrait of parents living through heart-wrenching life experiences that offer no easy answers. The two women at the center of the book are so fully imagined that I read the book as tirelessly as I would have read an account of the travails of dear friends. Full of the pain, the pride, the fear, and the love that every parent knows, Everything We Could Do is a gorgeous novel from a writer destined for a major career. ”

“Many of the key scenes in David McGlynn’s striking new memoir, A Door in the Ocean, take place at the beach or in swimming pools…Ocean swimming, in particular, transports McGlynn to another realm, and he does a terrific job of dramatizing the allure of solitary swims in open water…McGlynn’s writing, particularly about his long stint in the ranks of Christian fundamentalists, is alive with an insider’s knowledge of the power and comforts — and, yes, sometimes delusions — offered by collective radical belief. In a larger sense, this is a compelling coming-of-age story, one marked by random tragedy and biblical tracts, bad church coffee and chlorine.”

“McGlynn is an astute observer of relationships, and proffers insightful commentary on the power of memory to simultaneously burden and enrich the present. Beyond that, the sheer ease of his prose and the honesty of his journey are enough to keep readers moved and moving.”

“The book is often (painfully) funny . . . The heart of his new book lies in [McGlynn’s] willingness to expose the fact that he, like the rest of us, has learned far more from the many parenting failures than from the rare success. To be a parent, says McGlynn, is to hope you are doing things right but to never be sure . . . There’s so much at stake for a parent. So little room for error, and yet, the author reminds us, we err all the time. What’s most important, McGlynn seems to be saying, is not how many errors we make, but how willing we are to confront them. For our children, that willingness may be the greatest gift of all.”

“McGlynn is a fine writer who brings to life the small pleasures of family life—mediating warfare between his boys; teaching a son to ride a bike; buying his eldest a cellphone; and many more.”