MAR VISTA, Calif., Mitchell Ryan, an actor, artist, writer, with a career on stage and on screen who has played a broad range of roles in feature films and hundreds of television appearances in every genre, has completed his new book “A Special Providence”: a gripping and potent work that keeps the pages turning until its satisfying conclusion. “Providence” is book one of his two-part autobiography.
The year 1865 finds Edward, the author’s grandfather, behind the lines during the Civil War, where he finds his fatally wounded brother and watches him die, then buries him in the new land.
Edward is the owner of a bar and gambling hall in Ohio 1882. An ambitious man, he takes the opportunity to enter politics in Cincinnati. He must give up the woman he has been keeping, for she will taint his new life.
Now in 1899, in a loveless marriage to the daughter of a political boss, he banks everything on a mayoral campaign and loses. The birth of his second son, Charles, only serves to further trap him in despair.
Charles’s story begins in 1917. He is eighteen years old and studying his heart’s desire at the Art Institute of Chicago. He is called home by his father, Edward, to serve with his brother and enlist in the Army in World War I. He cannot be protected by his deeply upset mother. He goes to war, giving up his dream of being a painter.
In 1925, Charles is a reporter working for a daily newspaper in Chicago doing a story about bootleggers. On an impulse, he goes to visit the art school that he left years ago. He receives a phone call that his father has died and goes home to Louisville. While there, he reads that his reporter partner has been murdered by the gangsters they were investigating. Charles breaks down and is comforted by his brother’s wife, Molly, with whom he has always been in love.
Eight years later, in the middle of the Depression, Charles is penniless and out of work and is seeking the haven and warmth of the local library. He falls in love with Genevieve, a retiring young woman who is flattered by his attention. He sees her off to her family for Christmas. Then after visiting the whore whom he sees occasionally, he decides that he must change his luck, change his life, and marry.
In 1939, Charles is a salesman in Louisville. He is married now with two children, Mitch and Maggie, who are strangers to him. The city is under a plague of starlings. He feeds birds from his office window then goes to a museum, where he often escapes, to see a Vermeer.
He talks with Natalie, the curator who has befriended him, and is unsettled by how much of himself he reveals. Unused to the intimacy, he gets drunk and finds that the police are shooting the starlings.
Sickened by the slaughter, he goes home and begs forgiveness of Genevieve.
Published by Page Publishing, Mitchell Ryan’s engrossing book is an excellent choice for avid historical biography readers.
Readers who wish to experience this engaging work can purchase “A Special Providence” at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes Store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble.
About Page Publishing:
Page Publishing is a traditional, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors’ books, including distribution in the world’s largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing understands that authors should be free to create, not mired in logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and so on. Page’s accomplished writers and publishing professionals allow authors to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues and focus on their passion: writing and creating.
This article was shared with Prittle Prattle News as a Press Release by PRNewswire
