Thanksgiving Night
by Richard Bausch
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Description
Will Butterfield can't believe it. His 75-year-old mother, Holly, is drunk and threatening to jump off the roof. Again. Holly and Fiona, another elderly relative, won't stop tormenting Will and his wife Elizabeth with their bizarre (though often amusing) antics. Between Will's worries about his bookstore, The Heart's Ease, and Elizabeth's troublesome high school students, dealing with "the crazies" has become just too much. But then something unexpected happens -- Henry Ward, a neighborhood show more handyman, meets the two old women, and he, his daughter Alison, and grandchildren are drawn into the Butterfields' lives in surprising ways. Both a comedy and a love story -- a first for Bausch -- Thanksgiving Night is about the real meaning of family, and one particular clan that has many reasons to be thankful. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Bausch's characters are both believable and engaging, and the quiet weaving together of their stories is masterful in Thanksgiving Night. From the comical to the heartbreaking, the mundane to the crazy, the book creates a peak into another small world, and it becomes more and more compelling as it moves forward. For some, the book's subjects might be too ordinary, too centered on the day-to-day living of people who may as well be our neighbors or even ourselves, but Bausch's powers of language and description are beautiful enough that this becomes one of those books which uncovers the extraordinariness of emotions we might otherwise overlook as too average for thought, if not our own. He is a master of prose and creation, and this book show more is a wonderful excursion.
Recommended. show less
Recommended. show less
The characters are genuine and quirky. Family drama with some situations that are riveting; yet, you almost want to close your eyes so you don't have to watch what is happening. That is good writing. Would recommend this for anyone who enjoys contemporary fiction.
I loved this book. The characters really came to life and you care what happens to each and every one of them.
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Author Information
37+ Works 1,772 Members
Richard Bausch was born in Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1945. After serving in the U.S. Air Force as a survival instructor, he entered George Mason University, from which he received a B.A. in 1974. He then earned an M.F.A. degree from the University of Iowa and worked as a singer and comedian while writing fiction. He became a professor of English show more at George Mason University in 1980. His work includes the novels Real Presence, I Don't Care If I Never Get Back, The Last Good Time, Mr. Field's Daughter, and Violence. He has also published two collections of short stories, Spirits and Other Stories and The Fireman's Wife and Other Stories. He was shortlisted for the 2015 Bad S-x in Fiction Award. for his title Before, During, After. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Thanksgiving Night
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 106
- Popularity
- 304,754
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.81)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 4
