| Description: |
|
Product Description
A New York Times Notable Book
In the unrelenting cold and bitter winter of upstate New York, Jack and his wife, Fanny, are trying to cope with the desperate sorrow they feel over the death of their young daughter. The loss forms a chasm in their relationship as Jack, a sardonic Vietnam vet, looks for a way to heal them both.
Then, in a nearby town, a fourteen-year-old girl disappears somewhere between her home and church. Though she is just one of the hundreds of children who vanish every year in America, Jack turns all his attention to this little girl. For finding what has become of this child could be Jack's salvation--if he can just get to her in time. . . .
Amazon.com Review
Frederick Busch's 18th work of fiction, Girls, is a novel whose roots lie buried in an earlier short story. In "Ralph the Duck," Busch introduced Jack and Franny, a young couple trying to recover from the recent death of their baby daughter. In Girls Busch expands Jack and Franny's lives beyond this single personal tragedy to encompass a greater loss: the disappearance of a 14-year-old girl, daughter of the town minister and his dying wife, from the community.
Propelled by his own loss, Jack, a security guard at a local college, begins investigating the disappearance, and thus Busch's novel becomes a literary detective story. In the course of solving the mystery, Jack must grapple with his attraction to a professor at the college, the disintegration of his marriage, and the impossibility of outrunning the past.
|
