He was born on April 22, 1936, in Manhattan, New York City. His parents were Joseph Bryan III and Katharine Barnes Bryan; after they divorced his mother married author John O'Hara.[3]
Bryan attended Berkshire School in the class of 1954 and earned a Bachelor of Arts at Yale University in 1958, where he wrote for campus humor magazine The Yale Record.[4] He was also a member of the fraternity St. Anthony Hall.[5]
His first novel, P. S. Wilkinson, won the Harper Prize in 1965.[6]
Bryan is best known for his non-fiction book Friendly Fire (1976). It began as an idea he sold to William Shawn for an article in The New Yorker, then grew into a series of articles, and then a book. It describes an Iowa farm family, Gene and Peg Mullen, and their reaction and change of heart after their son's accidental death by friendly fire in the Vietnam War.[10][11] One of the real-life characters featured in the book was future Operation Desert Storm commander H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
It was made into an Emmy-winning 1979 television movie of the same name, for which he shared a Peabody Award. It's also been cited in professional military studies.[12]
"Introduction." In the Eye of Desert Storm: Photographers of the Gulf War. New York City: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. / Professional Photography Division of Eastman Kodak Company, 1991. ISBN 0810934604 / ISBN 978-0810934603.
^Tarter, Brent. "Joseph Bryan III (1904–1993)". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved August 5, 2015.
^Bryan, C.D.B. (1958). "Son of a Beach". The Yale Record. New Haven: Yale Record.
^Friendly Fire: The Literary Achievement of Bro. C.D.B. Bryan," (PDF). The Review. St. Anthony Hall. Spring: 11. 2010.
^ ab
"A Prize Case of Angst". Time. February 5, 1965. Archived from the original on February 3, 2011. Retrieved April 1, 2009. Novelist Bryan, John O'Hara's stepson, was educated at Yale, served in the Army during the peacetime occupation of Korea, and after his discharge was caught in the call-up of reservists during the 1961 Berlin crisis.
^Wade, James (1967). One Man's Korea. Seoul. p. 231. In 1965, as South Korea entered its export-led take-off, C.D.B. Bryan wrote that "this is the foulest, goddamndest country I've ever seen!" The only thing that made Korea bearable, he thought, was "the availability of women"{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) cited in
Cumings, Bruce (May 2003). "Some Thoughts on the Korean-American Relationship". JPRI Occasional Paper No. 31. Japan Policy Research Institute at the University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim. Retrieved April 1, 2009.
^About the author. Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: A Reporter's Notebook on Alien Abduction, UFOs and the Conference at M.I.T. New York City: Arkana Publishing, 1995. ISBN 0140195270 / ISBN 978-0140195279.
^Steven Heller (March 3, 2007). "The Other Monocle, an article by Steven Heller". Archived from the original on June 21, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2009. Monocle was started while Navasky was still a student at Yale during the tail end of the McCarthy period. ... Their trenchantly witty writers included some of today's literary and social comedic luminaries, Calvin Trillin, C. D. B. Bryan, Dan Wakefield, Neil Postman, Richard Lingeman, Dan Greenberg, and humorist Marvin Kitman
^
Sheppard, R. Z. (April 19, 1976). "Prairie Protest". Time. Archived from the original on February 4, 2013. Retrieved March 31, 2009.
^
Applegate, Edd (1996). "C.D.B. Bryan". Literary journalism: a biographical dictionary of writers and editors (illustrated ed.). Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 35–36. ISBN 978-0-313-29949-0. Retrieved March 31, 2009.
^Lt Col Charles R. Shrader, U.S. Army (December 1982). "Amicide: The Problem of Friendly Fire in War". Combat Studies Institute Research Survey No. 1. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. ArmyCommand and General Staff College. Archived from the original on March 30, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2009.
^Bruce Weber. "C. Bryan, 73, 'Friendly Fire' Writer, Dies." The New York Times, December 17, 2009, p. A41. Archived from the original.
^Sherrill, Robert. "Friendly Fire." Review of Friendly Fire by C. D. B. Bryan. The New York Times, May 9, 1976, pp. 199-200. Archived from the original.
The New York Times, February 1, 1965; October 21, 1970; May 12, 1976; August 9, 1983.
The New York Times Book Review, January 31, 1965, p. 4; November 1, 1970, pp. 46–47; May 9, 1976, pp. 1–2; October 14, 1979; August 28, 1983, pp. 10, 15; June 11, 1995.
Washington Post Book World, December 27, 1970, p. 6; May 2, 1976, p. L5; August 21, 1983, p. 3.
External linksedit
Boxes in the Attic ("Stories discovered inside 67 boxes of books, letters, photos and other items left to me and my sisters by our father, author C.D.B. Bryan, who passed away in December of 2009") – reminiscences about Bryan by his son, Saint George Bryan.
C. D. B. Bryan Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.