Duncan McGuire (writer)
Duncan Ryan McGuire (born May 12, 1977) is an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. Born in the East Bay of northern California, McGuire's work can best be classified as transgressive fiction and literary minimalism and is influenced by, and often references, the use of drugs and alcohol, working class Americana, relationships with women, and [...]. He currently resides in Long Beach, California1, where he is finishing up the remaining few chapters of his historically ficticious novel, Bitches: A Love Story.
Early Life
McGuire was the child of Sandra Lee Mcguire and a man listed as Unknown on his birth certificate. He was born 12 May 1977 in the Contra Costa County city of Richmond, California. McGuire lived in the East Bay cities of Pinole, Martinez, and Antioch until his mother remarried retired police officer, Robert Lee Duncan, and moved to the remote Shingletown, north of Redding, northern California
In the summertime, McGuire would spend time divided between his Aunt, in her San Pablo home, and with his grandparents, Eugenia and Roy Owens, in the small town of Clearlake, north of the San Francisco Bay Area, until the age of 12. Upon the divorce of his mother and second stepfather, McGuire then moved to the Mt. Gate, California, consisting of mostly Mobile home parks2 where he, his mother, and third stepfather, Clifford "Pete" Harris, remained until another move to the rural wooded area of Lakehead, where they lived in a log cabin next door to his grandparents.
McGuire graduated from Foothill High School in 19953, before joining the United States Army that same year. After completion of basic training,Infantry, and Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia, he was stationed in 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky as an 81mm mortar gunner and also completed Air Assault School. He married his first wife, Kelli Brandt, on 05 DEC 1997 in Clarksville, Tennessee before filing for divorce in the fall of 1998. McGuire returned to Redding, attended Shasta College in 1999 and 2000, before moving to the Signal Hill neighborhood of Long Beach, California in 2000.
Writing Style
In the fall of 2000, McGuire's daughter was born and he began writing poetry and short stories. After a collection of similar short stories were written AbOUT some of the women in his life, he decided to turn the stories into a novel. May, 2001 the first half of Bitches: A Love Story was written.
His writing style has most often been described as transgressive, literary minimalism, raw, and mysogonistic. McGuire has repeatedly denied any hatred towards women and states he has relationships with women, was raised by a woman, and his only child will, one day, become a woman. His work has drawn comparisons to Hubert Selby, Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn4, Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club and short story Guts, as well as the works of Poppy Z. Brite, Charles Bukowski5, Douglas Coupland, Henry Miller. McGuire's work also seems to be influenced by the lyrical styles of Nick Cave and PJ Harvey6; especially his poetry, which invokes scenes of Dark or Gothic Romanticism, [...] fetishism, and [...] literature.
References
http://poeticdiversity.org/main/prose.php?recordID=1530&date=2009-12-01
http://www.angelfire.com/journal/wordsareair/duncan.html
http://chesterfield.deviantart.com
http://california.hometownlocator.com/ca/shasta/mountain-gate-mobile-home-park.cfm
http://duncanmcguire.com
http://duncanmcguire.com/pb/wp_6f51ab1e/wp_6f51ab1e.html
http://duncanmcguire.com/pb/wp_789a929d/wp_789a929d.html
http://www.writers.net/writers/22383
http://facebook.com/duncanmcguire
http://myspace.com/duncanmcg