Spanning fable, crime, and realist literary fiction, this collection of stories leaves no feeling untouched. By capturing the nuances and complexities of these southern characters with an unfailing eye Bodock: Stories presents a universe of experience filled with darkness, humor, and desire. Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author of The American Daughters
With Bodock: Stories, Robert Busby has affixed his own postage stamp to the great and troubled state of Mississippi. The range in these eleven stories is impressive, from short-short to novella, realism to magic realism, young folk to old, historical to contemporary, white to Black, owner to enslavedand Busby handles all skillfully and with great empathy. William Faulkner has said that to understand the world, one must understand a place like Mississippi. Well, heres Bodock. Heres Mississippi. Here is the world. Tom Franklin, author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
Bodock: Stories reads like a desperate confession. A million hurts, shames, and damn mistakes whispered into a lover's ear in the silent black of midnight as the ice gathers on the eaves, with the terrifying hope that the sun will still dare to rise, that we can survive this storm and start again, battered, but forgiven. Busby is devastatingly honest and brazenly hopeful, Bodock a striking debut full of insight and variety. Meagan Lucas, author of Here in the Dark
Robert Busbys considerable genius is that he sees what the rest of us are unwilling to see and says what we are unable to say. Bodock: Stories is an ambitious and radiant debut collection that reminds me of the hilarious and heartbreaking stories of Lewis Nordan and Flannery OConnor, and it doesnt get better than that. Busby writes with energy, savvy, poise, and tenderness. When I finished Bodock: Stories, I walked around for days seeing the world through its lens. Do yourself a favor, buy this book and get in on the secret before everyone else knows what you soon will: here is the future of Southern fiction. John Dufresne, My Darling Boy
If this is where Busbys literary career is beginning, it suggests even better things to come. Devastatingly precise. Kirkus Reviews
