Frederick Busch’s short story Are We Pleasing You Tonight? concerns the owner or manager (it’s never clear which) of an upscale...

Last time, I stopped in the midst of discussing Frederick Busch’s short story Ralph the Duck , writing in particular about how Busch...

This week, I want to look at three short stories by Frederick Busch: Ralph the Duck, Are We Pleasing You Tonight, and Domicile . Busch, a...

As I wrote last time, we’ve been looking at largely content and meaning issues in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,  and last time, we...

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been looking at The Garden of the Finzi-Continis  through the lens of content and meaning, pondering...

There are several interesting literary references in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis  that enrich the story. Certainly, it begins with a...

‘Kay, this is supposed to be part two of a discussion on whether The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is primarily a love story or a story...

Last time, I suggested that The Garden of the Finzi-Continis  was more a story of unrequited love than one about the Holocaust....

Today, dear friends, a new story, Giorgio Bassani’s 1962 novel The Garden of the Finzi-Continis . The book won the Viareggio prize in...

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been considering some different aspects of Susan Minot’s fine novel, Evening . Today, I’d like to call...

A major distinction in literary works is whether a story’s plot is linear or circular. A linear plot expresses cause and effect—A leads...

Good day! Let’s get started. (chairs scraping on a dry floor, murmurs from the audience, coughing) Mr. Speaker! Your exaltedness! Call...

Evening uses several styles of narration to show different experiences of time. The chapter entitled A Pale Bay begins: She kept the...

This week, dear friends, we begin an exploration of a new book, Susan Minot’s 1998 novel, Evening . If one reads back of the book blurbs...

As we read and re-read Frederick Busch’s The Night Inspector , we may ask ourselves, what is the book’s major theme, my bro? (This is...

So, best beloved, who and/or where is the implied author in Frederick Busch’s The Night Inspector ?   The who? Long time readers of this...

Before we go further in our explorations of Frederick Busch’s The Night Inspector , let’s comment on the structure of the book. If we...

Frederick Busch’s novel “The Night Inspector” begins with the protagonist, Billy Bartholomew, directing a craftsman in the construction of a

The present time of “The Night Inspector” occurs in the period after the American Civil War, 1867, although it also covers the time of...

It has been a long break, best beloved. A long time since I’ve set forth on a voyage toward a book. Over a year ago, I signed off, vowing...