Awards
Winner of the 2004 PEN/Malamud Award
Synopses & Reviews
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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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"Richard Bausch is, simply, one of our greatest short story writers." Andrea Barrett
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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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"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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"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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"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
Synopsis
A 2004 PEN/Malamud Award winner, this collection celebrates the work of American artist Richard Bausch 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.
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 197475, 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. Fields 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 Yorkerand one for the Atlantic Monthly. He is the co-editor of the prestigious Norton Anthology of Short Fictionand 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.
Exclusive Essay
Read an exclusive essay by Richard Bausch