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“It seems everybody in America is mad at or disapproves of some other segment of our cultural landscape,” said Ryan, a New Milford Board of Education member.
“From politics to the media to religion to race to even our own neighbors, these days we disagree more often than we find common ground. What if all this divisiveness continues to tear at the fabric of our society? What will become of America?”
Ryan’s answer? His book: "A Simple Rebellion."
Quick-paced and humor-laced, the book is an exploration of the dark places where this divisiveness is leading us.
It takes readers to a near-future America extrapolated from our recent national behavior to provide a glimpse of what we may be doing to our culture, our country and ourselves.
Ryan says the story has haunted him for years, growing more insistent with each new president, each progressively more antagonistic Congress.
And he spares no one.
“The escalating manipulation of facts and spin and our trust has been perpetrated on all political sides,” Ryan said.
“All levels of media have helped us listen exclusively to our preferred viewpoint. As a result, we can no longer tolerate, discuss, or listen objectively to differing opinions, to the detriment of our future.”
Ryan hopes to set an example for his past and present students, demonstrating that engaging thoughtfully in the national discussion is imperative.
“Sadly, I believe the only way America survives is if we stop the posturing and positioning and blind allegiances and instead converse with each other,” he said.
" A Simple Rebellion" is available for digital pre-order now on Amazon.com, which was released on Saturday.
This is Ryan's 11th published title.
The father of two earned his MA and Rutgers University’s English Award for Highest Distinction in Literary Studies for his “master’s thesis” — a first novel, City of Woe, which he published independently through his Seamus and Nunzio Productions company.
The supernatural police thriller earned him theBookcast.com’s first-ever “Book of Exceptional Quality” award as well as “Best New Voice (fiction)" honors from the Independent Book Publishers Association.
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