Awards
Winner of the 2004 PEN/Malamud Award
Synopses & Reviews
Few writers of the past quarter-century have so consistently surprised, startled, and delighted their readers as has the masterful Richard Bausch, whom the
Washington Post Book World calls "a virtuoso of language and literary grace." His nine critically acclaimed novels have established him as one of the most important fiction writers of his generation, a visionary stylist with an acute eye for the minute detail that illuminates the deepest wells of human experience. Yet it is for his award-winning short fiction that Bausch is perhaps most admired.
The Stories of Richard Bausch celebrates the work of a great American artist, a writer the New York Times calls "a master of the short story." By turns tender, raw, heartbreaking, and riotously funny, the many voices of this definitive forty-two-story collection (seven of which appear here for the first time) defy expectation, attest to Bausch's remarkable range and versatility, and affirm his place alongside such acclaimed story writers as John Cheever, Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, and Grace Paley.
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"Bausch's stories operate on a heartrendingly human scale [and] imbue his characters with a quiet nobility. (Grade: A)" Entertainment Weekly
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"A fine, fat collection of 42 tales....[Bausch's] best stories are distinguished by characters whose complexity is simply and economically suggested....This is the book for which Bausch will be remembered." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
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"[M]asterful....Bausch illuminates both benevolent and malevolent aspects of human nature with dark humor, a spiky imagination, consummate artistry, and unfailing compassion." Donna Seaman, Booklist
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"Richard Bausch is, simply, one of our greatest short story writers." Andrea Barrett
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"Richard Bausch is a master of the short-story form, capturing the everyday lives of ordinary people with a flair and eye that make the mundane exciting and suspenseful." Chicago Tribune
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"While this is a strong selection of his best work, it still isn't in the same league as the early Updike stories, for example. There's a hint of academic exercise to these efforts, and Bausch doesn't try to push the boundaries. Recommended." Library Journal
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"A memorable collection." Boston Herald
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"No writer has a finer insight into the delicate nuances of the human heart than Richard Bausch." Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
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"A master storyteller at his finest." Charlotte Observer
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"Bausch writes about things that matter." Raleigh News & Observer
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"Bausch [is] a magical storyteller." St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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"Richard Bausch is a master of the short story." New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Richard Bausch served in the Air Force (with his twin brother, novelist Robert Bausch) from 1965 to 1969.He and his wife, Karen, were married in 1969 and have lived in Virginia since 1971; they have five children. After stints as a singer-songwriter and a stand-up comic, Bausch attended the Iowa Writers Workshop in 1974–75, with Allen Gurganus and Jane Smiley. He has taught creative writing at the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, Breadloaf, the University of the South, and elsewhere; currently he holds the Heritage Chair from the Writing Program at George Mason University. Bausch's novels include Hello to the Cannibals, The Last Good Time, Mr. Field’s Daughter, and In the Night Season. His stories have appeared in numerous prize-winning anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, O'Henry, and Pushcart, and have won two National Magazine Awards -- one for the New Yorker and one for the Atlantic Monthly. He is the co-editor of the prestigious Norton Anthology of Short Fiction and the recipient of the Lila Wallace- Reader's Digest Writer's Award and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Table of Contents
Preface
Nobody in Hollywood 1
Valor 14
Riches 31
Self Knowledge 47
Glass Meadow 50
Par 67
Someone to Watch Over Me 85
Fatality 103
The Voices from the Other Room 126
Two Altercations 139
1951 154
The Man Who Knew Belle Starr 156
What Feels Like the World 178
Ancient History 194
Contrition 213
Police Dreams 222
Wise Men at Their End 238
Wedlock 257
Old West 267
Design 292
The Fireman's Wife 307
Consolation 330
The Brace 344
The Eyes of Love 361
Luck 373
Equity 381
Letter to the Lady of the House 398
Aren't You Happy for Me? 407
Not Quite Final 421
Weather 438
High-Heeled Shoe 457
Tandolfo the Great 474
Evening 486
Billboard 501
The Person I Have Mostly Become 511
1-900 526
"My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun" 545
The Weight 562
Accuracy 579
Unjust 596
Guatemala 616
The Last Day of Summer 639
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by Richard Bausch