Something is out there

From the prizewinning novelist and world-renowned short-story writer, the author of 2008's universally acclaimed novel Peace ("A brilliant one-act drama depicting the futility and moral complexity of combat" --The New York Times), eleven indelible new tales that showcase the electrifying artistry of a master. A husband confronts the power of youth and the inexorable truths of old age. A son sits by his mother's bedside determined to give her what she needs in her final days, even though doing so means breaking his own heart. A brief adulterous tryst illuminates the fragility of our most intimate relations. A young man returns in the face of crisis to the parents he once rejected. A divorced young woman dealing with slowly increasing despair develops an obsesion about a note that fell from the pocket of a man who came to eat in the cafe where she works. A wife whose husband has been shot must weather a terrible snowstorm with her two sons, as well as a storm of doubt about the extent of his involvement in a crime.Richard Bausch's stories contend with transfixing themes: marital and familial estrangement, ways of trespass, the intractable mysteries and frights of daily life in these