Rescue Missions: Stories

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393330427 ISBN 13: 9780393330427

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007

"A range of small human dramas evoked with emotional intelligence and perfect pitch."―Amanda Heller, Boston Sunday Globe

Some of the stories in this "brilliant" (Library Journal, starred review) collection feature the war in Iraq, and others feature domestic wars; in every case, a character seeks to comfort or to save someone. Physical love, familial love, the need to give comfort―and the need for comfort―are themes skillfully rendered by this "master of the genre" (Booklist, starred review), whose achievements earned the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award of Merit for lifetime achievement in short fiction.

About the Author:

Frederick Busch (1941–2006) was the recipient of many honors, including an American Academy of Arts and Letters Fiction Award, a National Jewish Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award. The prolific author of sixteen novels and six collections of short stories, Busch is renowned for his writing’s emotional nuance and minimal, plainspoken style. A native of Brooklyn, New York, he lived most of his life in upstate New York, where he worked for forty years as a professor at Colgate University.

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. American letters endured a major loss in February 2006 with the sudden death of the author of North, The Night Inspector and 23 other books. Set in the present—from the battlefields of Iraq (two stories: "Good to Go" and "Patrols") to upstate New York (where Busch taught for many years)—these 15 works share a common theme of people trying to provide relief to those in physical, emotional and mental peril. In "One Last Time for Old Times' Sake," a married man tries to stop his lover from ending their affair so that she can nurse her dying husband. The recently widowed grandfather of a preschooler tries to recover his grandson's lost superhero cape and winds up in an encounter with the boy's teacher in "The Small Salvation." A woman hospitalized as a suicide risk, in "Metal Fatigue," challenges her father's notions of mercy during his visit. Some rescues are successful; others appear to fail; in many cases the rescuers are in the process of saving themselves. Together they offer an incisive examination of the idea of beneficence. (Oct.)
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