Frederick Busch :: Frederick Busch Literature Essays

Frederick BuschWhen some superstar asked Emmanuel Siys what hed make during the Reign of Terror, he replied, I survived.Though the characters in the stories of Frederick Buschs latest show dont have to contend with quite the same adversities as Monsieur Siys, nevertheless they encounter revelations which be, in our modern context, just as terrifying.And more than often than non, they survive them. These revelations usually involve the acquisition of acquaintance--the sort of knowledge we frequently already possess, but pretend that we dont parents have lives entirely unknown from their children there is a point beyond which damaged love cannot be repaired people use other people even when (and as) they love them.The families in these stories create stories of their own, stories about who and what they are as entities--stories which are often at odds with reality, but which help them to deal with the disappointments and tragedies of that reality.Clearly, the titles allusion to Hansel and Gretel invites reading these as stories of ingenuousness lost and most of the reviews of this oft-reviewed and much-praised collection (it was short listed for the 1995 Pen-Faulkner award) make much of this connection.But these are also stories of the terrifying darkness of adult responsibilities recognized and faced, though not always triumphantly. In Bread two children audition to put their parents rest home together (or perhaps take it apart) after their parents accidental death one seeks refuge in sarcasm and denial, while the other makes bread which depart never be eaten and thinks on various kinds of debris the still-smoking rubble of his biennial marriage, the pile of clothes which has nothing to do with how my mother wore my fathers flannel victimize on Sunday to cook in...In the stylistically innovative ferment Your Friends to the Zoo, a couple (these are nearly always duets of longing) awkwardly try to dismantle (or remember?) their affair, while being di rected by the narrator about how to move, what to see Once through the gate, face right.The Deer rest home, the Camel House ... As you face your right you see a path ahead you.Take it.The zoo would seem at first neutral ground, but we cite there is no neutrality, no one is the innocent bystander, the one-day tourist.In Is Anyone Left This judgment of conviction of Year? tourism of another kind is explored when a recently leave man visits a town where there are no more tourists, and once there, shell-shocked with grief, he merely repeats everything said to him, thus becoming an call up of his previous visits absolutely passive, he is the compleat tourist, merely and only seeing the sights.