Frederick Busch Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Keith Monley

Critical Essay by Keith Monley

The mind simply boggles at the contortions of which [Busch] is capable. [In Hardwater Country there] is such a wealth of characters, and personae, and occupations, and locales, and craft at his disposal that I am inclined to forgive him his minor deviations from good form. I might prefer the Mink Snopes of The Hamlet to the Buddy Preston of "Land of the Free," but, dammit, Busch has made B. P. equally convincing. And though "Family Circle" milks dry the device of retardation, of gradually revealed information, by the end of the story we have become so submerged in the tangled and equivocal relations between the grandfather, his "woman-about-the-house," daughter, son-in-law, and grandson that we forget our irritation at being toyed with so liberally. (In fact, if I hadn't been looking at this with my baleful critic's eye I might not even have noticed.) The prose in "Company" sometimes founders...
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