TEMPTATION, SIN, TRAGEDY, FARCE AND REDEMPTION ; REVIEW NOVEL FINAL Edition

• Published in: The Sun (Baltimore, Md. : 1837)
• Main Author: Scharper, Diane
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore, Md Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 03.12.2006
• Subjects: Bausch, Richard (1945- ); Grey, Holly
• ISSN: 1930-8965; 2573-2536

"[Petit] stares at him ... and seems to be considering. Then he raises the gun to his middle. ..." This is just one of many nail- biting moments in [Richard Bausch]'s 10th novel, Thanksgiving Night, a busy, multi-plotted tale involving an array of distraught characters. Besides Fire, his assistant, Father McFadden, and Mr. Petit, there are Oliver Ward and his daughter, Allison; Allison's 14- year-old son, Jonathan; Will Butterfield and his second wife, Elizabeth; Will's mother, Holly Grey, and her Aunt Fiona -- both 80- some years old; Will's grown children, Gail and Mark. Everyone feels on the edge in this suspenseful, violent, oddly farcical but tragic tale. In Thanksgiving Night, Bausch, winner of the PEN/Malamud Award for his short stories, returns to his Catholic roots (as seen in his first novel, Real Presence) with another unabashedly Roman Catholic story, which has catholic -- universal -- themes. Not only do both novels have priests as protagonists, they also have spiritual ennui and enlightenment as part of the conflict. Whether churchgoing or not, the characters have problems with the conditions of their souls -- a word Bausch uses frequently. They experience crises of faith in God, in each other, and in their own selves.