Richard Bausch's "Someone to Watch Over Me"

There's a part of me, while reading this book, that seriously wondered if Richard Bausch has ever had a successful relationship.  In this book of short stories, Bausch blends fiction with reality, separating them only with a thin, permeable barrier.  In each of the stories, starring failing and strengthening relationships, Bausch creates an unforgettable collection of enlightening and gripping stories.

Riches

            Definitely Bausch’s most engaging short story in his collection Someone To Watch Over Me, “Riches” exemplifies Bausch’s ability to sell his stories the best.  Bausch takes a miracle, and turns it into a nightmare.  The best part of the nightmare he creates, is that it happens all of the time in real life.

            Bausch’s adherence to life’s quarks and how unfair and how often they are is what makes his stories so relatable and interesting to his readers.  In “Riches,” a man wins a lottery ticket, saving his marriage from one pit by putting it into another.  Soon all of his friends and family change, leaving him behind in their greed and snobbery.

            Though still a dream to win the lottery, stories like this are true and happen more often than many would suspect.  People, who are afraid of changing, can relate to the story, both on an intellectual, psychological, and emotional level.

            As unique to his style, Bausch superbly makes all of his characters human, in the fact that they react, talk, and change the same way everyday people do.  It’s through this talent that people become captivated by Bausch and his stories.  It’s almost scary how realistic his characters and situations become.  Bausch keeps the main character, and narrator, from changing, so that it better shows how the others become these greedy narcissistic hypocrites.   The influence and corruption of money rings true in his story of a blessing and curse rolled into one.

            Not the only good story in his collection, Someone to Watch Over Me, but without a doubt the most hauntingly life-like one that everyone can relate to.

The Voices from the Other Room

            This was by far one of the stories I enjoyed the most.  When reading the first few lines, I was equally confused and intrigued by the style of writing Bausch adopted for this specific story.  This style, which set this story apart from all of the others, reads more like a script than a short story.  There are no narrations, no lines like ‘he got up and moved’ or ‘she blinked.’  Simply dialogue.  Whenever a character didn’t speak, three dots stood in its place.  Though very unspecific, it was easy to grasp the passing of time.  The silences in the conversation were natural to be extended, maintaining Bausch’s ability to keep a conversation between two characters to be exactly as it is in real life.

            Bausch, as always, creates memorable stories of failing relationships, especially in the Inception sense where the adulterous relationship between two married people is even failing.  Bausch’s ability to share the internal struggles between the two lovers late at night through silences (not writing at all) and short little responses is as sharp as ever.

            The uses these silences more sharply than the majority.  At the end, there are small pleas by one character answered only by silence from the other.  Much like a symphony, or in a calamity, the sudden silence is more powerful and louder than the noise preceding it.  Bausch, in “Voices From the Other Room,” uses this to build the tension one final time, leaving the reader hanging slightly, worrying about his characters.

Self Knowledge

           Richard Bausch is usually known for his ability to simultaneously paint the scene, characters, situation, and struggle of those characters in a very small amount of time and to pull his reader into his story in that short time.  However, with “Self Knowledge,” one can argue that he rushed it a bit too much, and did not follow up.

            Granted, the story, being only about two pages, did come to a resolution of sorts, but it was not built up well enough.  In those two pages, Bausch bombards his readers with random back-stories mixed sporadically with the current action.

            In a way, it is kind of like the narration is in the mind of the character, thinking as she does, which is a great skill and adds a lot to a story.  Unfortunately, the story is told through a woman desperately searching for a drink, then finds one.  So, in fact, the story is in the mind of an overstressed, slightly out-of-it, drunk woman, which would explain why the story jumped around so much.

            Although a good character and a good plot, it was rushed and condensed, but still very slightly enjoyable.

Website
www.richardbausch.com

Interview
http://fictionwritersreview.com/interviews/an-interview-with-richard-bausch 

Quotes
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/82718.Richard_Bausch 

Places to Buy Books:
amazon.com, local book stores (ex: Literary Book Post downtown Salisbury www.literarybookpost.com)