Bussey holds a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English literature. She is an independent writer specializing in literature. In the following essay, she evaluates Banks's novel, explaining why the small-town setting makes the book's tragedy more devastating to the fictional community—and, by extension, to readers—than it would be if it were set in a big city.
In The Sweet Hereafter, Russell Banks demonstrates how devastating the loss of fourteen children is to a small town. The author tells the tragic story of a school bus accident and its aftermath through the voices of four individual characters and portrays clearly the effects of this tragedy on the entire community of Sam Dent. While readers easily understand the grief felt by parents whose children die, the grief felt by the community.....
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