Gary Reilly
Gary Reilly was a writer.
Simply stated, that was the essence of the man.
Born in Arkansas City, Kansas he spent his early years in Kansas and Colorado in a large Irish-Catholic family–seven brothers and sisters. The family moved to Denver where Gary attended parochial high school, graduating in 1967.
He served two years in the army, including a tour in Vietnam as a military policeman.
After discharge, Gary majored in English at Colorado State University and continued studies at the Denver campus of the University of Colorado.
All along, his overarching ambition was to write fiction. And he did, prodigiously. His first published short story, The Biography Man, was included in the Pushcart Prize Award anthology in 1979.
Later he turned to novels, several based on his army experiences. While he wrote both serious and genre fiction, his greatest invention was the character, Murph, a likable, bohemian Denver cab driver. Starting with The Asphalt Warrior, Gary cranked out eleven Murph novels.
His dedication to writing did not include self promotion. Instead of seeking agents and publishers, he focussed on his craft, writing and rewriting, polishing to perfection. He wrote well over twenty novels before he thought he was ready make his work public.
Unfortunately, he passed away in March, 2011, before he could realize that dream.
Friends and family remember Gary as a fun-loving, generous soul who always had time for other writers, helping them shape their work, getting it ready for print.
Now, through Running Meter Press and Big Earth Publishing in Boulder, Colorado, Gary Reilly’s fiction is finally coming to bookstores in Colorado and across the nation.
“She looked confused. She looked off-balance. That’s a technique I employ to get dates, and it always works.”
“When I was a teenager, most fathers tended to go berserk when I asked their daughters on a date.... I discovered that all fathers go berserk when their daughters start dating. I have to assume this was because all fathers were once teenagers at some point in their lives, so they had no illusions about whether or not the boys were “up to something.”
“I was driving pretty much the way everyone drives in LA, like elephants dancing on each others’ backs at a circus.”
“I expected Los Angeles to be slick and modern, but overall it had a rundown look and feel to it. Sort of like Denver. Sort of like every city in America I’ve lived in, except San Francisco, which looks cool.”
“I was in the land of fakes and frauds and phonies—I felt like saying “Howdy cousin,” to everybody who walked by.”
“My big dream back then was to buy an IBM Selectric. I still have that dream. I really ought to buy a word-processor. Half the cabbies at Rocky own computers. They tell me they can write failed novels ten times faster on a PC.”
“That was how I was going to get things back to normal—by working. I never thought I would use the words “working” and “normal” in the same sentence, but I’ll try anything to avoid facing reality.”
“I wandered the sidewalk watching all the street performers doing their juggling acts, playing their musical instruments, busting their asses to avoid work. I liked that. But I wanted to tell them there were easier ways to avoid work, like cab driving.”
“My fake weekend has begun. I always take Tuesday off, unless my rent is due and I need to pick up some extra cash. I always take Thursday off, too. I have two fake weekends and one real weekend per week. Sometimes I wish there were eight days in a week just so I could squeeze in an extra weekend. But we all have our crosses to bear.”
“My imagination was running amok again. Twice in one night. This never happens when I’m sitting in front of a typewriter.”
“It’s a funny thing about writing. You get so balled up in a story idea that you lose your perspective and forget that human being might read your words someday.”
“Most of the ideas I’ve gotten for novels or screenplays have occurred to me while I was either shaving or taking a bath. A number have occurred to me while I was driving 127. I rarely get ideas when seated in front of my typewriter, which I find ironic because I have always suspected that typing somehow plays a key role in writing.”
“I had never liked bullying of any sort, especially when an individual acquires his courage by becoming part of a faceless mob. I always say if you need fake courage, get it out of a bottle like I do.”
“Writers, even unpublished writers, have a tendency not to notice what’s going on around them when they are the center of attention.”
“...like I always say, “Now is as good a time as any to start not doing things.”
“I don’t know why the publishers in New York don’t take a tip from Hollywood and just publish the outlines of novels rather than the completed books. Let the audience use their imaginations, as my Maw always says about radio. I would much prefer to read an outline of War and Peace than slog through eight hundred thousand words. Why do I need Tolstoy to describe snow? I can imagine snow, whether Russian snow or just regular snow. But book publishers seem to think that the authors should do all the work, and the readers should be waited on hand-and-foot like a buncha goddamn prima donnas.”
“I have completed and uncompleted screenplays, but they both fall into the category of “unsold.” I’ve seen quite a few movies where the screenplays seemed to be in the “uncompleted” category yet still got sold and made into movies, so I generally refer too all screenplays as “sold” or “unsold.” But that’s just my own filing system.”
“Golf baffles me. They says it’s a sport, and I have to take their word for it, but anything that involves having fun while standing up doesn’t interest me. That includes dancing. NASCAR I can understand. In fact, anything that involves sitting down automatically has my interest...”
“I don’t know why anybody does anything in the winter. I always say, if you want to do something, move to Phoenix.”
“I hate competition. It’s one of the seven warning signs of work. I’ve spent most of my life trying to figure out ways to make money without working. I don’t know what I could do to get money besides driving a cab, except robbing banks. Both occupations have their pros and cons. For instance, bank robbery isn’t quite as dangerous as cab driving, but it pays better.”