Coming of age during the 1960's and 70's--tormented by a bullying older brother, suffering the initiation of young heartbreak, as well as unacknowledged pain from repressed memories of a sexual assault, along with the Vietnam draft hanging over his head--Bob Ryder suffers the self-defeat of academic failure but then channels his pent-up rage into an award-winning book of poetry. Despite the emotional and spiritual pain that underlies his existence,...