Seeking shelter from the ‘Weather of the World’
BAUSCH’S EMOTIONALLY STORMY YET REALISTIC STORIES EVADE CLICHÉ AND INSTEAD RESONATE
RICHARD Bausch, a Southerner who now lives in California, has written a dozen novels and put together several story collections. His ninth collection, “Living in the Weather of the World,” includes 14 stories that take place in Dallas, Memphis and Ireland. No one is better at realistic storytelling than Bausch, who has won several awards for long and short fiction. Some of his stories involve ex-military men and cops, but other stories depict family strife. The characters in all of these stories struggle through the emotional weather of grief, anger and sorrow; some folks find a little happiness.
Bausch’s reimagining of how elements of the Kennedy assassination might have occurred is about as close to speculative fiction as this consummate realist gets in this collection. In “The Knoll,” Bausch doesn’t name Dallas or Kennedy, but it is 1963 when two Secret Service agents codenamed Utilizer and Sanitation set up on the knoll to shoot the Designated Item. Utilizer, an old pro in his 40s, is the shooter. Sanitation, the younger man, is there to dismantle the “article of utility” and clean up the discharged shells. Sanitation, a politically minded young fellow, says, “Word is he’s gonna take us right to communism. Make peace with Cuba.” But to Utilizer, shooting the Designated Item is just a job.
Realistic stories that could easily turn into melodramatic clichés become, in Bausch’s hands, resonant and entertaining. They are populated with believable characters that you care about, even if you don’t particularly like them. In “Veteran’s Night,” things get out of hand when a group of punks makes the mistake of pushing around two hard-luck Iraq war veterans in a bar that’s tended by a Vietnam vet with a baseball bat.
As exciting as Bausch’s stories can be, there’s plenty of psychological meat in them. In “Still Here, Still There,” Bausch follows up on the life of Robert Marson, the World War II soldier from his prize-winning 2008 novel “Peace.” Marson and former German soldier Eugene Schmidt reunite in a media event arranged by Schmidt’s grandson, Hans. During the war, Schmidt saved Marson’s life in Italy. Both men suffer health problems and share little in common other than the war, where “grief was the weather all the time.”
Bausch’s stories portray marriage, love and infidelity with the same insight, empathy and wit that he has for the lives of servicemen. The young cop Joseph Koren in “Walking Distance” is distraught and angry after his wife says she’s leaving him. She’s unhappy, apathetic and depressed. When Koren, still livid and armed with his service revolver under his sweatshirt, leaves for his morning walk, he’s confronted by a wannabe bandit who tries to rob him. In “We Belong Together,” Cathy has told her husband, Breskoff, that if he lies to her again about seeing another woman, she’ll leave him. He’s in advertising, and lying comes easily to him. After he’s lied again, Cathy fulfills her promise and drives him to meet his lover, Tina. Breskoff feels a “sudden terror” about Cathy leaving him, though he tries to make the news sound sanguine: “But all that’s done with now, and we’re free.” But Tina doesn’t believe his lies, either.
In “Unknown,” Tess calls her lover at 3 in the morning and wants him to come see her. They had both agreed that it was supposed to be “a fling, for fun,” but “things change,” she says. When he tells her he can’t risk the affair any longer what with his wife and two daughters, she threatens to kill herself if he doesn’t come over. Some plots may sound stereotypical, but Bausch deftly imbues his characters with enough depth to make a commonplace story something unique and emotionally thrilling.
Some of Bausch’s characters are young, but most are middle-aged; others, like those two old soldiers, are near death. The Irish couple in “The Same People” are in their late 70s. The wife is terribly sick; she coughs and bleeds from the mouth. Yet they sit on the veranda, sipping wine and watching the world for the last time together. The husband takes pictures of them happily together so people will know they both agreed to ending their lives.
Bausch has received the PEN/Malamud Award and the Rea Award for the Short Story. His writing is uncluttered, and every word feels perfect. The stories here aren’t just entertaining; they demonstrate just how exciting and resonant realistic short fiction can be.
Bausch’s stories portray marriage, love and infidelity with the same insight, empathy and wit that he has for the lives of servicemen.