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CONTACT
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American Requiem
The Sum Of Moments.
Don J. Snyder
For those I lost and never lost
We are all refugees
from one war torn country
or another
from one war torn love story
or another.
Nothing means anything anymore.
We haven't seen our friends in years.
To talk with, I mean.
Really talk with.
We live in big houses
but find little rest there.
And I don't even know
what it means that
I was named after my mother's
favorite cousin, Donnie.
Or why I have carried
his photograph with me for
almost half a century.
It was taken at the end of 1950
with only black and white film.
So the colors in his tattoos,
an intricate riot of color
like the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel,
are lost to the world now
except in my memory.
And I am the only person
left who would remember.
He had the first one
burned into his left arm
in shock
that he somehow survived
the battle of Guadalcanal
in the winter of 1943.
Then the right arm just before
the battle of Okinawa
where he knew that he would die
and never get home to marry
the only girl he'd ever loved.
He did not know, of course,
that in his absence
state troopers
from the barracks
in the next town
were riding
her skirts up her thighs.
This was at a time when guys and girls
often got up to mischief
in cars parked around Green Lake.
Those cops had been exempt
from the war
and were on the prowl
like sharks in a sea
of lonely girls
to whom virginity
had come to seem like
someone else's bad idea.
A foolish waste of something.
What happened to Donnie
after they were married
and had quickly brought
two beautiful little troublemakers
into the world,
you will learn at the end of this poem
after I have recalled everything else that
I can remember of my life in America
that is ending like the country is.
I mean the country
that Donnie fought for.
For now, I think it is sad enough
to begin this by telling you
what I have just told you. -
The Tin Nose Shop (2022)
The Tin Nose Shop will be publshed by the Legend Press of London in July 2022.
For most of us, it takes a while to realise that we cross lines in our lives. Silent, unmarked borders of time that we pass, as if in our dreams, without ever realising what we are leaving behind. We do not see that the matchless nights of being cherished and held close are vanishing even as we live them, and that we are all refugees from one war torn country or another, or from one war torn love story or another. Time moves so deceptively that we never say, ‘This is the last walk I will take with you along the shore.’ Or ‘This afternoon I carried a child in my arms for the final time.’ Perhaps early this morning while we dressed and put the kettle on, our destiny advanced, unwatched.
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Walking With Jack (2013)
A long-standing promise from a father to his five-year-old son . . .
A poignant diary that chronicles the journey
When Don Snyder was teaching the game of golf to his young son, Jack, they made a pact: if one day Jack became good enough to play on a pro golf tour, Don would walk beside him as his caddie.
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The Winter Travelers (2011)
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Winter Dreams (2004)
A moving novel about love, loss, and an extraordinary lifelong passion for golf, by the acclaimed author of The Cliff Walk and Fallen Angel. Ross Lansdale never knew his mother and father and grew up at St. Luke's Orphanage for Boys in the 1950s. The one person who took an interest in him was Father Martin, a Benedictine monk who understood the loneliness of an orphan’s life.
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Of Time & Memory (2001)
Don Snyder knew nothing about his mother aside from the terrible fact that she died at the age of nineteen, just sixteen days after giving birth to him and his twin brother. All his life Don had been too shy, too deeply pained to ask his father or grandparents to tell him the story of the lovely girl named Peggy Snyder--what delighted or troubled her, who her friends were, how she fell in love, what cut short her brief life.
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Night Crossing (2001)
A novel of political intrigue (the time is 1998) with overtones of a classic Hitchcock thriller; a story of a romantic encounter—of two strangers suddenly invading each other’s lives.
Night Crossing carries us from a quiet Boston suburb to a wild pursuit across the northern counties of Ireland. The man and woman who find themselves bound together are from two different worlds.
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Fallen Angel (2001)
The death of his estranged father draws Hollywood film executive Terry McQuinn back to the coastal Maine town of his roots and gives him the chance to make long-overdue peace with his late father, come to terms with the events of the past, and rediscover the mysteries of family and love.
Adapted into a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV production that aired December 2003.
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The Cliff Walk (1998)
Snyder's account of temporarily losing his way in life presents a heartrending and inspiring memoir that "confronts the not-so-secret fear that haunts every American who works for a living" ("Atlanta Journal-Constitution"). Author publicity.
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From The Point (1989)
Jack, Ross, and Casey, growing up in the 1960s, spend a summer together on Hancock Point. Ross is drafted, leaving Casey pregnant with a child she aborts. Their lives diverge till, in their mid-30s, Jack decides that "going back to Hancock Point would give them all a chance to see exactly what was left of their past." Though Ross is married, Casey decides to have his child. We see mainly Casey "crashing along . . . with wounds," as she indulges in a lot of morbid reminiscing.
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Veterans Park (1988)
At a distance, young men in uniform satisfy all our vague longings for grace and order. Bobbi Ann Mullens watched these young men from the time she was a little girl riding on her father's tractor, wedged between his knees when he sang his song to her, the song he sand when he took her to town perched like a parrot on his arm, the song he sand like a lullaby at night in her bedroom when the windmill in the backyard sliced the moon into narrow white bars of light that fell across her blankets.
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Soldier's Disgrace (1987)
U.S. Army Maj. Ronald Alley survived three years in a North Korean prison camp only to be charged with collaboration on his return to freedom. Found guilty, he was dishonorably discharged and sent to Leavenworth, the only U.S. officer in this century to receive such a sentence. This riveting book reveals what Sen. William Cohen of Maine, a partisan of the late Alley, has called a gross violation of justice.
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Don J. Snyder
AUTHOR
From the time I was seventeen years old I wanted to write important books and movies that would bring meaning - DEEP MEANING - into peoples' lives. I wanted it so badly that from the time I was 21 until I turned 34 I locked myself in a room and lived alone like a monk, reading the classics over and over while I taught myself how to write luminous sentences that revealed the great truths about life and love and friendship. The stuff that is important in this world. I gave 12 years of my life to this education without any guarantee that anything I ever wrote would be good or that I would ever see a word of my writing published. But I dreamed the big dream that my books would be published by the great illustrious publishing houses of New York City - a million miles away from where I was locked in my room. Random House. Little Brown. Doubleday. Simon & Schuster. And above all the others - Alfred A. Knopf - the most respected literary publisher in the world. I wanted this so badly that if someone had come along then and said, Ok, we'll make a bargain with you, Don. You cut off your right arm and we'll grant you your dream. I would have said, No, thanks. But you can cut off my left. And that is the truth. That is how badly I wanted this. I wanted beyond hope and dreaming to become a novelist.
ABOUT ME
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TV APPEARANCES
RADIO INTERVIEWS
INSIDE "OF TIME & MEMORY"
OPRAH SHOW
TODAY SHOW
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
Don J. Snyder reading, Live from Prairie Lights,
on October 19, 2013
Memoirist and novelist Don Snyder reads from his memoir. “Walking with Jack” is a poignant diary of a father's journey to the hallowed golf courses of St. Andrews, Scotland, to fulfill his dream of becoming a caddie and join his son—a promising young golfer standing at a crossroads—for his debut on the professional tour.
"I don't know if you're going to play better golf after reading Walking with Jack—and there's a good chance you will—but I do know that you're going to want to call your son at the end… just because you can. You're also going to see more things, think more thoughts, and have a richer experience when you walk those next 18 holes. This is a terrific book, destined for that small shelf of great golf writing."
—Leigh Montville, author of Ted Williams and The Big Bam
Don Snyder is the author of the memoirs “The Cliff Walk” and “Of Time and Memory” and the novels “Night Crossing” and “Fallen Angel”. He lives in Scarborough, Maine.
Audio is the property of The University of Iowa Libraries - visit their website at digital.lib.uiowa.edu
Don J. Snyder discusses life, work and the story that still defines him on Chicago Tribune Radio WGN 720
Rick Kogan sits down with Don J. Snyder to talk about his extraordinary life and work. As a child, Snyder never knew that his mother died 16 days after giving birth to him and his twin brother. It was his father’s secret — and it would become the story that defined Snyder’s life.
Snyder is the author of multiple novels and nonfiction books, including his newest, “Walking With Jack: A Father’s Journey to Become His Son’s Caddie.” In the memoir, Snyder tells the story of his effort to connect with his son by moving to St. Andrews, Scotland, and learning the tricks of the trade from the world’s best caddies.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Kogan and Snyder discuss how he became a writer, why he moved halfway across the world to get closer to his son and how he finally discovered who his mother was — and how she died.
In the beginning of this interview, Mavis Staples talks about her preconceptions of white people in a clip provided by “Jubilee Showcase.”
Audio is the property of WGN Radio - visit their website at www.wgnradio.com
Richard and Peggy Snyder on their wedding day in November 1949
Richard and Peggy Snyder on their wedding day in November 1949
Richard and Peggy Snyder on their wedding day in November 1949
Don Snyder and his twin brother
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Revisiting the Past To Share a Mother's Untold Story
Don Snyder never got to know his mother. She died just sixteen days after he and his twin brother were born in 1950. The truth about her death remained a secret for decades. Today on Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe talks with Don about discovering his mother’s secret and what he hopes to accomplish by telling her story.
Audio is the property of Iowa Public Radio - visit their website at www.iowapublicradio.org
Byron Nelson of Reading, Pa., putts on the 18th green at the Augusta National Invitational at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., April 2, 1937. (AP)
A Father’s Journey to Become His Son’s Caddie
Mark Twain described the sport of golf as “A good walk spoiled.” Eighteen tiny holes dotted across a vast course — with only yourself to blame if things go wrong between the tee and the pin. But, in golf, there is a shoulder to lean on, a light in dark places– a shepherd. The caddie.
And writer Don Snyder knows a thing or two about caddying. When his son wanted to be a pro golfer, Snyder went back to school. Caddy school. In Scotland, so that he could walk beside him.
Audio is the property of 90.9 WBUR - visit their website at www.radioboston.wbur.org
Don J. Snyder on the Diane Rehm Show to talk about
"Night Crossing on June 25, 2001
In August of 1998, a terrorist bombing in the center of Omagh, Northern Ireland, killed 28 people. Author Don Snyder traveled to Omagh a few days later, and his observations of the tragedy's aftermath inspired a novel. In his story, the bombing becomes the centerpiece of a story about the relationship between an American woman and a British soldier.
Audio is the property of the Diane Rehm Show and WAMU 88.5 | NPR - visit their website at www.thedianerehmshow.org
Don J. Snyder on the Diane Rehm Show to talk about "Of Time and Memory" on September 14, 1999
Don Snyder discusses his new book, "Of Time And Memory" (Knopf). It's the story of how and why he set out to learn about the mother he never knew, who died just days afer he and his twin brother were born.
Audio is the property of the Diane Rehm Show and WAMU 88.5 | NPR - visit their website at www.thedianerehmshow.org
LIVE FROM PRAIRE LIGHTS
10/19/2013
CHICAGO TRIBUNE RADIO
WGN 720 - 10/15/2013
IOWA PUBLIC RADIO
10/17/2013
RADIO BOSTON 90.9 WBUR
06/13/2013
THE DIANE REHM SHOW
"NIGHT CROSSING"
THE DIANE REHM SHOW
"OF TIME & MEMORY"
FILM
Golden Globe® and Emmy Award® winner Gary Sinise plays Terry McQuinn, a high-powered Los Angeles lawyer who learns a powerful lesson about second chances. When his father dies, Terry returns to his Maine home. He is reunited with Katherine Wentworth (Joely Richardson), whose family had employed the services of Terry's father as caretaker and handyman on the Wentworth summer estate for decades. A secret from Terry and Katherine's past turns out to be the key to their future—and a reminder that it's never too late to forgive—and never too late to fall in love.
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