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Summary
Author Notes
Robert Charles Bausch was born at Fort Benning, Georgia on April 18, 1945. In 1965, he and his twin brother enlisted in the Air Force and served together for four years, teaching survival tactics. He received a bachelor's degree in 1974, a master's degree in English in 1975, and a master of fine arts in creative writing in 2001 from George Mason University. He taught at a private school before becoming an instructor at Northern Virginia Community College in 1975. He received a statewide award in 2013 as one of Virginia's leading college professors.
His first novel, On the Way Home, was published in 1982. His other novels included A Hole in the Earth, The Gypsy Man, Out of Season, Far as the Eye Can See, The Legend of Jesse Smoke, and In the Fall They Come Back. His novel Almighty Me was adapted into the movie Bruce Almighty. In 2009, he received the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature from Longwood University for his body of work. He died from multiple myeloma October 9, 2018 at the age of 73.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Bausch tells the penetrating story of idealistic, newly graduated Ben Jameson, a hopeful young English teacher at Glenn Acres Preparatory School in Virginia. Enchanted by his own grandiose notions of inspiring young minds and changing young peoples' lives, Ben flouts the typical English lesson plans, as well as the conventions of teacher-student relationships; he wants to "get in amongst them and stir them up." Despite warnings from his girlfriend, the school principal, and more experienced (and more cynical) colleagues, Ben becomes increasingly involved in the lives of his students: he wonders at one student's history of sexual molestation, he hopes to save another from abuse, and he becomes enraptured by a beautiful but troubled girl who has returned to the school for a fifth year with one last chance to graduate. Bausch perceptively explores the complexities and dangers of idealism and the motivations behind altruism. The book's greatest strength is its portrayal of the earnest yet misguided Ben as being ignorant to the fact that the more he "helps," the more damage he inflicts. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Looking back nearly a quarter century, Ben Jameson, now a government attorney, reflects on the two years he spent in the mid-1980s as an English teacher at a private school in Virginia. Fresh out of graduate school, Jameson was barely older than his students. Whether it was proximity in age or a God complex, Jameson displayed a heightened empathy for three troubled teens: George, suffering physical and emotional abuse by his father; Suzanne, another abuse victim, so traumatized she is unable to speak or make eye contact; and Leslie, whose beauty belies a manipulative but fragile persona. Though always couched in the guise of his role as a concerned educator, Jameson nonetheless insinuates himself into their lives in inappropriate and even tragic ways. Bausch's (The Legend of Jesse Smoke, 2016) unreliable narrator offers a mid-life contemplation of a brief career abounding in delusions and rationalizations that do the opposite of clarifying the events that still haunt him. Readers will be haunted by Bausch's eerie psychological portrait of a young man who grasped too much power too soon.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2017 Booklist
Library Journal Review
How involved should teachers be in the lives of their students? This question is at the heart of Bausch's latest novel, set in the hothouse atmosphere of a private high school in the northern Virginia suburbs. Narrator Ben Jameson looks back on his brief career as a teacher at Glenn Acres Prep in 1985. As a new teacher, Ben believes he can make a difference, especially in the lives of three damaged young people in his class. George is abused by his bully of a father, Suzanne is a trauma victim who moves silently through the halls like a ghost, and Leslie is a troublemaker, a beautiful but spoiled and willful daughter of wealthy parents. She is the one all the other teachers warn Ben about, but he, by turns cynical and idealistic, still thinks he can help these kids turn their lives around. But will he go too far in doing so? VERDICT The author of many works of fiction (The Legend of Jesse Smoke; Far as the Eye Can See), Bausch this time presents an absorbing character study of a young man who may not understand his students-or himself-as well as he thinks he does.--Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.