March 06, 2005

Manual Labor by Frederick Busch

I praised the writing of Frederick Busch in one of my first posts on this blog after reading The Children in the Woods, an excellent collection of short stories. I read one of his old (published in 1974) novels last week. Manual Labor is quite interesting. Structurally, it's mostly told through two sets of writing, one a long letter written by a wife to her mother, the other a set of journal writings, or the like, written by the husband. Basically, it's a tale of two people, a young couple, who have suffered losses and are trying to get by, day by day. They launch into chores, activities, and sometimes even conversations, as they try to move on from the past. It's a very domestic tale. But it's also very powerful (the mere idea of the first few pages is startling), and Busch's use of langauage is insipring. It's familiar yet grand, funny and moving, insightful but confused. All in all, it's a fine short novel.

Posted by armand at March 6, 2005 06:55 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Books


Comments
Post a comment









Remember personal info?