The Fate of Others

A new collection of short stories examining the extraordinary shades of ordinary life, from the prize-winning fiction writer Richard Bausch (“A master of the short story" —The New York Times Book Review)

In ten piercing new stories Richard Bausch fleshes out the rich inner worlds of his characters and plumbs the nuances of infidelity, loss, and profound loneliness. In “Donnaiolo,” a young divorcee moves back into her childhood home, with no plans other than to eat her parents’ food and smoke cigarettes in her room. In “Isolation,” a woman pines for her lover while quarantining from the COVID-19 pandemic with her husband, a situation that deteriorates when she learns her beloved has fallen gravely ill. In “Broken Home,” a Catholic school field trip takes a violent turn when the unsupervised altar boys discover an abandoned house in the woods. And in “The Widow’s Tale,” a recent widow attends a séance after her sister reports having reoccurring dreams about her late husband.

Throughout The Fate of Others, Bausch illuminates the tender, comic, and profound facets of the human condition, affirming once again his status as a modern master of the short story form.