Memoir, memorial
Perhaps the only bad thing about having enormous talent is that it can be taken away, and too soon.
That's what happened to Robert Nylen, who died of cancer at 64 in his Ashfield home last December. Nylen was a publishing entrepreneur who was unafraid of risks. In the 1980s he cofounded New England Monthly, an award-winning magazine of often stunning excellence, and in the '90s followed that up by cofounding Beliefnet.com, a prominent spiritual website. Nylen also was an ad manager for U.S. News and World Report, a vice president of Texas Monthly, and a Vietnam veteran who won the Bronze Star.
Part of his personal legacy is a warts-and-all memoir that he finished just before his death, titled "Guts - Combat, Hell-raising, Cancer, Business Start-ups, and Undying Love: One American Guy's Reckless, Lucky Life." The book, just out from Random House, garnered a starred review from Publishers Weekly,
Nylen's sentences are pithy and pointed, always descriptive but never maudlin. Here, for instance, is Nylen on Vietnam: "The longer dismounted grunts stayed in the field, the more likely we were to be shot, booby-trapped, intestinally compromised, and infected." And on publishing: "New England Monthly was wildly successful with media mavens and critics. . . . We were smug, yet diffident. We were anxious, but good copy. We boasted, but made fun of ourselves." And, on dealing with cancer: "Small pleasures give you more joy. Annoyances bother less. You love your family more than possible."
Since Nylen isn't here to promote the book, his many friends and former co-workers are doing it for him. Tonight, prominent authors such as Tracy Kidder, Dan Okrent, Barry Werth, Richard Todd, and Joe Nocera will appear at the Broadside Book-shop, 247 Main St., Northampton, at 7 for a personal tribute and memorial reading.
