Author and UM graduate Robert Busby in conversation with Ace Atkins for Bodock, a debut short story collection that balances grit with heart, violence with depth, and tragedy with humor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About the book <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In 1994, the real Mid-South Ice Storm strikes the fictitious town of Bodock in Claygardner County, Mississippi. In the wake of the storm, what is left unbroken, and what broken things can be rebuilt? Hailed by Maurice Carlos Ruffin as \u201cleaving no feeling untouched,\u201d Robert Busby\u2019s debut balances grit with heart, violence with depth, and tragedy with humor. Two siblings survey the damage to their family\u2019s orchard after the storm while their rich nephew circles in the hopes of buying up the property. A slacker divorcee drives his ex-father-in-law to his lung transplant surgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A cop tries to piece his broken family back together in the wake of the loss of his son. In 1816, a farmer\u2019s wife plots with an enslaved woman to stop her husband from committing a terrible act. And in a town that is not quite Bodock, a population of ghosts reckon with their unsettled pasts. In the spirit of Brad Watson\u2019s Last Days of the Dog-Men, Bodock traverses time and dimensions to surface the struggles of the everyday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About the author <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Robert Busby grew up in the hill country of North Mississippi and has worked as a bandsaw operator, bookseller, copywriter, driving school instructor, powder coater, prep cook, produce clerk, teacher, and satellite television technician. A graduate of the University of Mississippi, he got his MFA in Fiction from Florida International University, and his stories have appeared in Arkansas Review, Cold Mountain Review, Footnote, Mississippi Noir, PANK, Pleiades, Sou\u2019wester, Surreal South, and others. Currently, he writes, runs, and raises two humans with his wife in Memphis, TN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About the conversation partner <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Ace Atkins is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty novels and numerous short stories. A former college football player and newspaper reporter, he\u2019s a recent recipient of the Richard Wright Award for excellence in Southern Literature and a member of the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame. He lives with his wife Angela and two children in Oxford, Mississippi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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