- Paperback: 1 pages
- Publisher: New Directions; Reprint edition (Dec 1 1991)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0811211754
- ISBN-13: 978-0811211758
- Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 13.7 x 1.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 313 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,780,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
These 14 stories represent a master of the genre writing with his customary power and eloquence. Busch, the recipient of several notable fiction awards, is the author of four previous short story collections ( Too Late American Boyhood Blues ), seven novels ( Invisible Mending ) and two volumes of criticism. Here, he explores a breathtaking range of the possibilities of short fiction. He writes of characters at risk, on the brink, or walking wounded. His situations are often bleak. In "From the New World," a man returns to his dead father's house where he must confront his hostile sister and the unknown con tents of his father's last letter addressed to him. In "Ralph the Duck," a Vietnam veteran heroically rescues a suicidal college girl. "People keep dreaming about the dead people they knew, see? You can't make people dream about you like that! It isn't fair!" he tells her. ("I want you to," she says. "I want you all to.") Busch's characters are vivid and real, and their sorrows are the knowable tragedies of real life. Raymond Carver's stories come to mind, but with this difference: where Carver's fiction is limned with flatness and voids, Busch's stories have resonance and depth.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
As its title suggests, this collection of 14 stories focuses on victims of separation. Busch documents the pain and loneliness created by divorce, imprisonment, death, increasing senility, and even terrorist kidnapping. While he identifies some immediate causes of estrangement, he also probes the more complex inner factors that prevent people from establishing or continuing relationships. Though somber, many stories contain comic ironies. A college student earns a D in persuasion and rhetoric but convinces another student not to commit suicide. A young girl in intensive care is given Keats's "When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be" as a homework assignment. An accomplished writer of fiction, Busch consistently provides lively, revealing dialogue and telling physical details in his description.
- Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
- Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
Norman's p.o.v.: The blue-white spin of heavy snow in the afternoon, the metronome of their windshield wipers, and only the high banks of ice and slush, only Tess and Norman tunneling upstate. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Norman's p.o.v.: The blue-white spin of heavy snow in the afternoon, the metronome of their windshield wipers, and only the high banks of ice and slush, only Tess and Norman tunneling upstate. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Favorite short story,
By Dave Schwinghammer "Dave Schwinghammer" (Little Falls, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Absent Friends (Hardcover)
"Ralph the Duck", the second item in ABSENT FRIENDS, is my favorite short story. This first-person account by a Vietnam veteran hooks the reader with a funny golden retriever who loves what makes him sick (Think about it). The narrator is a part-time college student, taking one free class a session in partial payment for his job as a security guard. He figures it'll take him sixteen years to graduate.The story is heavily laced with irony in that the student tests the teacher. The narrator (I couldn't find a name) turns in a paper entitled "Ralph the Duck", which seems entirely inappropriate for an assignment in rhetoric and persuasion (You'll need to read the story several times before you figure out why he felt it met the assignment). We've all met teachers like the professor. He never wears a suit. He sports khakis and sweaters, loafers or sneakers. Ironed dungarees. There's lots of sardonic humor. The narrator says, "Slick characters like my professor like it if you're a killer or at least a onetime middleweight fighter." The story picks up pace when a red-headed co-ed takes some pills during a snowstorm and disappears, and our hero is off to the rescue. The redhead is the professor's "advisee". Although the story is twenty pages long, it is very sparely written. As I was reading it, I thought to myself, "This would make a really good novel." Apparently Busch did, too. It's called GIRLS. If you can't figure out "Ralph the Duck", read the novel.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautifully Untold Tales,
By
This review is from: Absent Friends Stories (Paperback)
In "From the New World," the first of the fourteen stories in this collection by Frederick Busch, a producer with a liking for Melville encourages a writer to develop a script where people learn things without overhearing them. Busch follows his character's advice: these stories are about loss -- the loss, by sympathetic, everyday people, of a parent, spouse, sibling, or child -- and yet the dimensions of their loss, sometimes even the fact of the loss itself, are only hinted at. The stories are remarkably affecting, the characters are credible and interesting, and the dialogue is right on.
5.0 out of 5 stars
deeply felt,
By
This review is from: Absent Friends Stories (Paperback)
Busch is a very perceptive writer and the stories in this book is realistic fiction at its best. He possesses so much wisdom about the pragmatics of life and infuses them with humor and genuine human emotions. I especially love the story Ralph the Duck where he becomes another Holden Caulfield, a lovable loser who eventually becomes a hero. Highly recommended.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
