Robert Bausch

On The Way Home
1982
Still available with LSU press, the author's first novel, which Newsweek magazine called "compelling." John Gardner said the novel was a "strong, spare, sad, eloquent novel--exactly what Hemingway would write if he lived throught he kind of war we make now."

The Lives of Riley Chance
1984
The author warns us at the beginning that this is a sad story...This is forgivable, however, for Robert Bausch has produced a funny, intelligent, poignant novel that courageously explores the fundamental truths in all our lives.- Carol Verderese New York Times Book Review

Almighty Me!
1991
"This is a wonderful novel. Intelligent, fanciful, world-weary but joyous, and very, very funny."
---Fay Weldon

"Those of us lucky enough to have read and relished Robert Bausch's other novels have good news for the many who will soon discover his best and latest--"Almighty Me." Because Bausch is a master fabulist, you will find a wonderful...premise at the heart of things. Because Bausch is a master storyteller, you will enjoy clear, strong writing about people who matter. Because Bausch is a great comedian, you will laugh out loud a lot of times, sometimes at dark and dangerous things. Because Bausch is, first and last, a truth-teller, you will surely agree with Charlie Wiggins, the remarkable narrator: "Let me tell you, they call it a broken heart for a good reason."
---George Garrett

From Publishers Weekly
In a divine conceit, Bausch's hero, Goodman Charles Wiggins, a Dodge salesman in southern Illinois, learns from an angel named Chet that for one year he will have God's powers. How Charlie deals with this gift and if, indeed, it's enough to bring him happiness, is the burden of this darkly comic tale; as Chet points out, "You have God's power but not his wisdom." A family man with two young daughters, Charlie is bothered by the growing disaffection of his wife Dorothy, who has returned to school and thrown herself into life as a student. Practicing his powers at work, he sets up a hilarious progression of events between his boss and the dealership secretary; problems come closer to home when he mistakenly causes Dorothy's parents' house to burn down and they must move in with him. His efforts to help himself and others initiate disastrous climatic changes, lead to the deaths of a few people, one of whom he restores to life, and, in the end, are neither help nor hindrance in his relationship with Dorothy, whom he wants to love him on her own, not because he, with his power, compels her. Although the plot occasionally gets slightly out of hand, Bausch ( The Lives of Riley Chance ) creates characters who, in an incredible situation, remain believable, consistent and worth caring about. Part fable, fairy tale and fantasy, the story of Charlie Wiggins and his dilemma will amuse and entertain less empowered readers. Film rights to Disney Studio's Hollywood Pictures.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The White Rooster and other stories
Bausch's strong, beautiful, moving stories, 10 of which appear in this collection, are testaments to the human capacity to feel and connect in an emotionally alienating world. In ``Stag Party,'' a grief-stricken 23-year-old mathematician, floundering after his mother's death, clumsily attempts to rescue a terrfied, naked stripper who is assaulted by beer-soaked veterans at a stag party. In ``The Hairpiece,'' spiked with wry and bizarre, yet touching, humor, a widow reaches out to the surly stepson who despises her--by giving him her deceased husband's toupee, woven of his own hair. Humans' relationships with animals are central to several tales, including the title story, in which a sick, stray rooster's sudden appearance in the yard of a selfish, retired carpenter triggers the man's confrontation with his estranged son and new daughter-in-law. In ``Cougar,'' an allegory on the hazards of starving the creative subconscious, a stockbroker/poet, his nerves shattered, takes a solo vacation in the Ontario woods; there, he spies a cougar (or thinks he does) and indulges in a thoughtless lie about his wife that nearly costs him his marriage. Also included are topical, timely stories, one about a wife who undergoes artificial insemination against her husband's wishes (``One Thing in Life''), and another about an ex-cop who teams with a mailman to burglarize houses in hopes of arousing their suburban neighborhood to form an anti-crime squad (``Vigilance''). These wonderfully clearsighted, uncompromising tales (none of which has been collected previously) ring true and provide unalloyed pleasure.
Publisher's Weekly

A Hole in the Earth
2000
A novel of families, what tears them apart and what can bring them back together, A Hole in the Earth is an extraordinarily, sometimes excruciatingly accurate portrait of a man charting the foreign territory of his feelings. A New York Times Notable Book, and Washington Post Favorite of the year.

From Publishers Weekly
If one of the purposes of literature is to illuminate human inconsistencies and frailties, failed attempts to communicate, and redemptive possibilities, this richly rewarding new novel by the author of Almighty Me wins stars in each category. On the verge of turning 40, narrator Henry Porter endures a summer in purgatory. The black sheep of his respected family, he is a grade school history teacher who augments his income by frequenting the race track, an obsession that exasperated his wife, who left him years ago, taking their young daughter, Nicole. Now 18, Nicole turns up on his doorstep in Washington, D.C., throwing Henry into a paroxysm of nervous guilt. Trying to reconcile his feelings of parental failure with his compulsion to bet on the horses, he can barely greet Nicole before he rushes off to make a daily double wager. Then, when his patient and understanding lover, fellow teacher Elizabeth Simmons, tells him she's pregnant, Henry can't cope. He is, indeed, emotionally stunted, trapped in an adolescent limbo caused, he believes, by the abiding disapproval of his father, a well-known judge. Afraid to make a decision, preferring to gamble and let fate decide rather than act decisively, Henry is blind to the implications of his behavior. He resists any suggestion that his gambling addiction might be pernicious. In a plot that develops its rising tension with seamless ease, Henry's lies and evasions catch up with him in a wrenching series of disasters, a nightmare that keeps unrolling until he reaches the nadir of his existence. With a delicacy and subtlety that indicate a mastery of his craft, Bausch captures and sustains the reader's sympathy for self-destructive Henry. At last, in a moving denouement, Henry achieves a transcendent moment of self-worth and connection. Bausch's profound empathy for his characters, his wise understanding that the texture of life is composed of ambiguities, failures, guilt feelingsDand a few successesDcontributes to a flawlessly expressed novel.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Gypsy Man
2002
Looming over Crawford Virginia is the legend of the Gypsy Man. Everyone knows he was kidnapped and returned as an infant... only to disappear again during World War 1 and come back... to steal children. Haunted by individual fears and superstitions, the inhabitants of Crawford are joined by a common history.

Out of Season
2005
Sorrow is David Caldwell’s daily companion. Nine years ago, his eleven year old son, Todd, killed his baby brother in an accident... never fully explained, never quite forgotten. With the intensity of a Shakespearean tragedy, Bausch draws on the heart-break of loss and the power of redemption like no other writer.