Frederick Busch has written a supberb 114 page novella that delves into the psyche of two adults born during the years of the Korean War, or forgotten war as called by some. In his thirties and driven by associated guilt from his fathers actions while in a prisoner of war camp, Peter Santore sheds his lawyer suit to leave the States for England where he searches out the daughter of a hero from the same prison camp as his father. He yearns for peace from his troubling past and hopes to find answers from a total stanger. Through twists and turns and the introduction of Fox, an officer who survived the ordeal and lived to tell about it, vivid tales are retold of what life was like as a prisoner of war during this conflict. Busch weaves intrigue and mystery through betrayals and deceit centered around a whirlwind love story, leaving the reader with a surprise grand finale while paying a subtle homage to Thomas Hardy throughout. I encountered difficulty getting into this story with the first chapter but became engrossed as Buschs characters rose from the pages. An interesting fast read for those curious about the Korean conflict.

I fully expected to enjoy this gritty suspense set in the same gilded age NYC of E.L. Doctrow's The Waterworks. For whatever reason though, I found it rather tedious and affected at times. The story follows a former Union army sharpshooter, who must always wear a mask to conceal his wartime disfigurement. This is presumably a metaphor for the city itself--as Busch manages to put tidbits of its historical sordidness, such as child prostitutes, on display for the reader. There are a lot of flashbacks, telling the background of this man, and of his wartime exploits, where he is used as any other tool. These struck me as much better written and interesting than the bulk of the book, which revolves around the man's attempt to liberate some child slaves with the aid of Herman Melville and various other cultivated allies. The characterizations are quite good, as is the period detail, but the story itself never quite gelled for me.

Billy Bartholomew served as a sniper in the Union Army during the Civil War. He survived a minnie ball to the face, but after the war, has trouble dealing with his disfigurement and the memories of his work as a sniper. He tries to isolate himself in a slum neighborhood in Manhattan but his humanity gets the best of him. He helps his poor neighbors. He befriends an alcoholic Herman Melville whose writing has been ignored. He plots to rescue a group of black children from slave dealers. He even falls in love. Busch's writing is exquisite (if only the English language were spoken in America today as it is spoken in this book...!). His complex characters have a mystery about them which is enticing. He presents a fascinating picture of New York and America embarking on a new era. A great work of fiction!!

Frederick Busch has given us a heady mixture of emotion, narrative and history in The Night Inspector. This is a powerful novel, a gripping tale of a hero who is damaged emotionally as well as physically. William Bartholomew is a civil war sniper whom fate has punished with a hideous face wound, forever hidden behind a papier-mache mask. The title character of the book is the then for gotten author, Herman Melville- Bartholomew's new friend- who lives a twilight existence as a customs inspector. Melville and the Phantom-like wander a bleak Victorian New York City, drinking heavily and visiting sights of depravity in the old city. Interspersed with the narrative, the masked protagonist's mind keeps wandering back to his days in the war, and the grisly but efficient assassinations he made on behalf of the Union side with his Sharps rifle, prior to his disfigurement. This is a fascinating adventure, written by an excellent storteller. Atmospheric, moody,violent, and sometimes bawdy, this is a novel well worth a few night's reading.

This is a gloomy collection of stories about difficult relationships. Most of the stories are written in the first person, and are to do with infidelities, disappointments and betrayal. There are a few odd themes: sump pumps, wells. The author is at his most touching when writing about dogs: shades of JM Coetzee. There is not a trace of humor in this sour book. Many of the stories are located in upstate New York, a part of the country I will now never visit.

Yes, there is an eerie quality to these stories, the kind that lies just past the happily-ever-after of so many fairy tales. It is with beautiful prose, a clear eye, and often affecting poignance that Busch expresses the small and large cruelties his characters inflict upon each other, sometimes in the name of love, and sometimes not. Busch masters the complex emotions in these stories without sentimentality or cynicism. This is a wonderful and necessary piece for any literary fiction collection.

It has been quite some time since I read this book, but I do remember how powerful the writing is. References to fairy tales are woven throughout these stories, and, as you know, fairy tales can be rather frightening. Giving this book only one star demonstrates one of two things: the reader should be reading only feel-good books, or the reader completely missed the point.

Hard Times feels like a book that Dickens did not polish nearly as much as the many classics associated with his name. It's the story of the unhappy lives of two children of a father who raised them to speak and appreciate only "facts." Imagination, fantasy, passion, and the like were all forbidden in their household.

Their lives are unhappy, as you'd expect. But they also lack much narrative interest. The usual twists and turns of fate that Dickens invests into his characters' lives are mostly absent. As a result the book drags on. Hard Times also lacks the humor found in other Dickens books, his pithy observations of different persona of his time. So, in reading the uninspiring narrative, you find yourself wishing for something, anything of the old Dickensian magic. Alas, it does not show up.

If you have other Dickens titles you're set on reading, read them first. You're likely to enjoy them more.

I always had a revulsion when I was forced to read Dickens in high school, and I was never able to get past the first chapter of any of his books, including this one. Now that I'm in my mid-30's, I want to re-visit a lot of the works that I had no patience for as a teenager, so I read Hard Times. Although there are many flaws to this book, I felt proud to have finally cleared the Dickens hurdle. Dickens is excellent at creating sympathetic (and evil) characters, even though they may be slightly cliche or wooden. The fact is, Dickens is able to hook you in with his plots and create a profound concern on behalf of the reader that the good guy (or girl) wins and the bad guy suffers. A lot of the twists in this book were a little "too convenient" and implausible to make it a crowining work of literature, but nevertheless it has motivated me to move on to Dickens' larger, more daunting works. If you are having any trepidation about tackling Dickens, Hard Times is a good place to start.

Dickens creates a novel that virtually revolutionizes literature of the 1800's. At a time where most writers wrote in a stuffy prose full of unrealities and a jaded outlook, Dickens dares to tell with honesty what he sees through his window.

Hard Times has yet a misleading title. It gives one ideas of harshness, depression, poverty, and social decline--although the actual reality of then-London, still not something you would choose to read. However, Hard Times has as much depression and poverty as any of Dickens' other works. It is just in this case that Dickens chooses to remind the world that in the deepest despair there is beauty yet to be seen.

Dickens was a strange author. In his supposedly inspiring books, you get an overdose of sadness, and in his depressing books, you find beauty. It is this case with Hard Times.

It is a poor, honest man's search for justice in a world where only the rich have merit. It is a girl's search for true love while battling the arranged marriage for money. And lastly, a woman's search for recognition against her favored, yet dishonest brother. It is these searches that at last come together and become fufilled. And, while at the same time telling a captivating story, it comments on the then--and still now--presence of greed and total dishonesty one has to go through for money.

The title of this review sums up Hard Times. Its beauty comes from the pure searches for truth, the sorrow comes from the evil the characters most overcome to get there, and the honesty is both the truth with which Dickens portrays life and the the overwhelming truth that these protaganists create.

Holly Burke, PhD.

Clinical Psychologist, Abnormal Psych. Professor

Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins Inst.

This took a long time to get me interested; I even put it down and read two books and then tried again.

I had a feeling throughout that Harry and the author were one and the same. Almost like Harry didn't have to be fully fleshed out, as a character, in order for the author to understand him. On the other hand, the rest of the characters were pretty weak too.

I liked Harry, as much as he was, and Catherine was ok, but probably not someone I'd seek out. Carter was dreadful. I couldn't stand the grubby, grabby pretender that he seemed to be. When he behaved well, I was surprised. When he behaved as he normally did, I was repelled. The kids were minor characters, and not very real or true. The relationships to each other were thin and lacking in depth.

Gardeners might like Catherine's garden and cooks might like her meals. Wood choppers will wonder why she was chopping wood on the concrete floor of her barn and why she didn't dislocate her shoulder when she hit the floor with her axe. Liberals will laugh to hear themselves discussed so blatently negatively. Women will wonder about some people's attitudes toward sex.

-------- ... then catherine came in, reminding him that sometimes you make the trip, that's all; you just, sometimes, GO there. Because she stood in a doorway, tough-looking in her jeans and sandals and old chambray shirt - he thought he remembered its blueness on the clothesline - with her hair cut shorter . . .

frederic busch, professor of literature, includes every lit-school technique to get you/me to identify with harry or catherine...

i, of course, identified with harry: slightly porky, writer, reflective, not adolescent, still lustful . . . still romantic . . .

"harry &..." echoes american family and speech as faithfully as "Plainsong" (Haruf) chants the midwest . . .

heartbreaking/heartfilling !

Big

Being Jewish may help readers connect with Zimmer, the protagonist grappling with a crisis of faith and identity as a man born Jewish but living as he was raised, with no attachment to the Jewish culture or history. Nonetheless, I found Zimmer's personal struggle on this subject to be quite interesting, if not emotionally engaging. I became much more invested in the outcome of the story when the novel shifted emphasis toward the end to focus on Zimmer's conflict between his emotional gratification and his role as a husband and father. At this point, with a much more "human" Zimmer, I was reminded of Girls and Closing Arguments, two other Busch novels I highly recommend.

I found the dialog, at times, difficult to follow and too stilted for my taste. Also, the seamless shifts in time I enjoyed so much in Closing Arguments and The Night Inspector (another Busch novel) were, perhaps, too invisibly mended in this story.