A Hole in the Earth

Rating:
Summary: A Solid Work of Fiction
Review: As in all Bob's books, be prepared for an emotional roller-coaster of a ride - sad, funny, exasperating, but ultimately human, and thus, satisfyingly true. Henry Potter may not be your next best friend, but you know him nonetheless, and you can see glimpses of yourself, as well; that is what makes this book such a treat. Go Bob, go - can't wait for the next one.

Rating:
Summary: A gambler unwilling to take a chance.
Review: Henry Porter is an impulsive man, and a gambler (horses), yet he is hesitant to risk making a commitment to his lover. Porter is often exasperating, and can even get tiresome. At the same time, he is as decent as his weaknesses and philosophy will allow, which is a great strength of the novel. Porter is reflective, even if he tends to get the sequence of reflection and action reversed. The book is interestingly plotted and sometimes funny. Porter's love for the ambience of the race track is communicated well. His girl friend is endearing, and the relationship between Porter and his daughter has many fine moments. The end of the book is foreshadowed in an introduction - except it is not the end, as there is a subsequent "Hollywood" ending, which is not entirely convincing, even if it is enjoyable

Rating:
Summary: A gambler unwilling to take a chance.
Review: Henry Porter is an impulsive man, and a gambler (horses), yet he is hesitant to risk making a commitment to his lover. Porter is often exasperating, and can even get tiresome. At the same time, he is as decent as his weaknesses and philosophy will allow, which is a great strength of the novel. Porter is reflective, even if he tends to get the sequence of reflection and action reversed. The book is interestingly plotted and sometimes funny. Porter's love for the ambience of the race track is communicated well. His girl friend is endearing, and the relationship between Porter and his daughter has many fine moments. The end of the book is foreshadowed in an introduction - except it is not the end, as there is a subsequent "Hollywood" ending, which is not entirely convincing, even if it is enjoyable

Rating:
Summary: Bausch does it again
Review: I found a book by Bob Bausch a few years ago called "The Lives of Riley Chance". I was so enthralled with his style of writing and the flow and tone of his work in Riley Chance that I began to seek out as much of his other work that I could find. I found "On the Way Home", "Almighty Me" and "the White Rooster". You can imagine my delight when I stumbled upon "A Hole in the Earth" on Amazon.com.

So, a friend ordered the book for me and I read it within just a few days. I simply couldn't put it down. Bausch somehow reaches to the core of his characters and proves yet again his ease and skill with telling you a story. His first person voice preference and imagery are filled with sarcasm, irony and all the feelings and frustrations everyday people feel and think but can't put into words. He does this with ease and understatement and you will find yourself laughing out loud and seeing in his characters people you know, maybe even yourself.

Get your hands on this book. Read the first few pages, and you'll be searching for other Robert Bausch treasures like me, hoping that he's working on another right now. Keep em coming.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I just read this novel, my first book of Bausch's, and I simply can't agree with anyone who doesn't give it at least four (if not five)stars. It is a complex, funny, TRUE book, true in the sense that it reads like an account of real people facing real issues and trying to understand them and maybe even grow a little.

It is a failing of literature today that readers expect a narrator to be "likeable", simple and sympathetic. If you want to believe the public pieties and the shallow facades some people show to be liked, that's your problem. Most of the people I know, both friends and enemies, are like Henry Porter: occasionally selfish, sometimes disagreeable, often prone to doing or saying the wrong thing (without the proper "bon mot"), but in the end, human beings who are funny, interesting, loving, and even courageous despite their flaws. Henry is not a great guy, but he's one of us, and that's what makes the ending of this book so incredibly moving. It is not a "happy" ending, but it is hopeful, and TRUE, and it brought tears to my eyes.

Bausch earns my highest praise -- and by the way, no good reader believes that "the author's voice is the narrator's voice." Bausch and Henry cannot be equated. Perhaps a reader who is simple enough to think that has trouble with Henry because the reader sees too much of himself in the character.

Rating:
Summary: Well written, but I couldn't even finish
Review: I was lured into reading this book because Amazon.com listed books
that readers were also buying who bought the excellent Feast of Love.
The others listed were all five star books but not this one, despite
the lavish praise in the reviews below. I found it to be a coming of
age tale (at age 39) about a not very attractive character ... The
author seems to only make up his mind what the book is really about at
the end ... Maybe it's a guy thing and I don't get it. I also didn't
get the narrator's diatribes to the reader about women and what it is
they want. Frankly I didn't much care about Henry Porter, and I cared
less about his opinions on women. The eulogy sounds crackerjack but
you don't write a novel around a eulogy, or do you? Still, like other
readers have mentioned I read it all the way through and found it to
be an interesting enough read but not a five star book. It has short
chapters and makes a good train book. (I also feel let down by the
blurb on the back cover by Ann Beattie, one of my literary idols, who
called it "exciting and exacting... a winner." Maybe I'm
missing something.)


Rating:
Summary: I can't give it more than 3 stars .... so sue me.
Review: In the face of all these 5 star reviews, I will likely be excoriated for giving it anything less, but we have to be honest with our feelings, right? In fairness, I do have to say that the last quarter of the book was quite strong and better than the material that preceded it. I did however have two problems with the book. The more minor problem was that it just seemed so relentlessly depressing for almost the entire way through. While there is some evidence of a "hopeful" ending (it would be wrong and overly simplistic to call it a "happy" ending), by that point the book was almost over.

By far my larger problem with the book however, was Henry Porter, the narrator. I have read few first-person novels where the narrator is such an annoying and obviously dislikeable person. I read where one person thought he had a "big heart" Come again? I found him to be an impulsive, hot-headed, cold-hearted, disputatious, incredibly selfish and self-centered gambling addict. He never had the right words for the moment (other than his speech at the end), never a bon mot, and never rose to the occasion (again putting aside the funeral). He had no charm, no wit, and no other characteristics that would have made him a likeable person. In virtually every one of his dealings with both Nicole and Elizabeth, it seemed that everything he did and said was exactly the wrong thing, and I was frankly surprised that they didn't run away from him far sooner than they did. In fact he usually made me cringe, especially around poor Nicole. And I don't buy the argument that "underneath it all, he's really a good man" for a second.

If this novel were not written in the first person, I may have reacted less negatively to Henry. But in most first person novels, the narrator is almost by necessity a likeable character. After all, to some extent, the narrator's voice is the author's voice and vice versa. His or her insights, perceptions, sense of humor and worldview may well be tied up with the author's. This is not to say that a first person narrator has to be perfect by any means. Far from it. In fact, I find that many first person narrators are often quite self-effacing and only too willing to point out their own flaws. Of course, Henry shared these traits too. But whereas many first person narrators are still likeable or funny people in the final analysis, despite their flaws, that just cannot be said of Henry, at least in my view. The whole time, I just felt like saying to him "Get away from me, you worm!", but of course, in a first person narrative, that's pretty difficult isn't it?

Rating:
Summary: A truly wonderful read....
Review: Robert Bausch is an outstanding story teller. After the first few pages, I was involved in Henry Porter's life and the complex, but very real, relationships he had with his family, fiance and daughter. Henry's conflicting feelings had me laughing at times and crying at others. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and highly recommend it to others. I'm an avid reader and have found only a few books that I did not want to end -- this will be among them!

Rating:
Summary: Absorbing, complex, so very wise - I couldn't stop!
Review: Wow.

When I heard Robert Bausch had written his best book to date, I never expected this absorbing, complex, so very wise novel to swallow me whole. Once I started, I simply could not put it down; I read late into the night, knowing I had to get up early the next morning and not caring at all.

The narrator, Henry Porter, is a mess: a compulsive gambler, non-committal lover, absent father. But he has a big, confused heart and that's what makes him lovable. He wants to do the right thing, and can't. His estranged daughter, now eighteen, shows up at his door with her male friend just as Henry learns his girlfriend is pregnant. Henry has so much baggage from his childhood and brief stint as a husband that he can't cope with these developments. That Bausch makes his readers not only care about such a man but root for his happiness demonstrates Bausch's talent as a novelist. The plot, far more complicated than I can describe here, has ends flying everywhere that touch and spark whenever they cross, culminating in one of the most electrifyingly emotional conclusions I've read all year.

You have to read this book. It's one people will be talking about for months.