Personal Information: Family: Born July 20, 1951; son of E. B. (an electronics engineer and peripatetic campanologist) and E. R. (a journalist and editor) Boylan; raised and educated in Ireland, France, Switzerland, and Scotland; returned to U.S. 1978, lived in New York City; married Elizabeth Mary Makowski in Staten Island, N.Y., October 19, 1990; children: Margaret Mary. Education: Attended University of Ulster, 1971-72; University of Edinburgh, B.A., 1976. Politics: "Progressive Conservative." Religion: "Doubt; as Tennyson said, ‘There lives more faith in honest doubt, / Believe me, than in half the creeds.’ If I had a religion, I'd be a Roman Catholic." Interests: History, music, painting, literature, natural history, world affairs. Hobbies: Walking, driving, gardening, movies. Addresses: Agent: in Europe: Andreas Brunner, Schäffergasse 22, 1040 Vienna (Austria); Eva Kovalnik, c/o Liepman Agency, Postfach 572, Maienburgweg 23, 8044 Zurich (Switzerland); in USA: c/o Dalkey Archive Press, 6271 E. 535 North Rd., McLean, IL 61754; c/o Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

Career: National Institute of Languages, New York City, instructor in English and French, 1985-91; Chase Manhattan Bank, New York City, technical writer, 1991-93; Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, director of English as a Second Language, 1993-95; Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc. (publisher), Austin, TX, editor, 1995-2002; 2003-present, Harcourt Assessment (publisher), San Antonio, TX, senior editor.

WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:

• Killoyle (novel), Dalkey Archive Press, Chicago, 1997.
• The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad (novel), Grove Press, New York, 2003.
• Killoyle Wine and Cheese (novel), forthcoming.

Contributor to periodicals including Scrivener, The Recorder, Austin American-Statesman, Boston Review, and Literary Review. Regular contributor to Boston Review's New Fiction Forum and the Texas Observer Book Page.

Killoyle and The Great Pint-Pulling Olympiad have appeared in German, translated by Harry Rowohlt. The former title was published in 1999 by Rogner und Bernhard Verlag, Hamburg and Berlin, under the same name; the latter as Rueckkehr nach Killoyle (Rogner und Bernhard, 2002). Killoyle Wine and Cheese, third part of Killoyle trilogy, is forthcoming in Germany, also published by Rogner und Bernhard.

Works in Progress:; Gustave Adored, a novel of twentieth-century Europe; The Geneva Murders, a mystery novel; a memoir.

"Sidelights"

Roger Boylan told CA: "I write in order to make sense of life and in order to amuse myself and others. I am influenced primarily by Irish satirists such as Swift, Sterne, Beckett, Flann O'Brien, and Joyce; also by Hacek, Nabokov, and Kafka, of the central / eastern Europeans; and by such unavoidable universal giants as Flaubert, Dickens, Dostoevsky, and Twain. I write on a computer at home, on weekends and in the early morning. I have chosen to write for now on subjects Irish, for a familiar context, and subjects universal, such as love, ambition, death, et cetera, so my work will endure, or at least have a meaning for others. I am currently working on the third volume of the Killoyle trilogy."

FURTHER READINGS ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Periodicals

• Dallas Morning News, September 21, 1997, p. 9J.
• Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 1997, pp. 478-479.
• Library Journal, April 1, 1997, p. 122.
• Publishers Weekly, April 14, 1997, pp. 55-56.
• Boston Review, December 2003-January 2004.