Bodock: Stories

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’wester, Surreal South, and others. Currently, he writes, runs, and raises two humans with his wife in Memphis, TN.

“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 enslaved—and 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, here’s Bodock. Here’s 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 Busby’s 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 O’Connor, and it doesn’t 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 Busby’s literary career is beginning, it suggests even better things to come. Devastatingly precise.” —Kirkus Reviews“There are only 11 stories in Bodock, and one – the meditative “Seasonus Exodus” – is only a couple pages long. But in this debut collection, Busby manages to present the history, folklore and inner workings of an entire fictional town – a town populated by characters tackling the full breadth of human experience.” —Cam Howe, Compulsive Reader

• MistletoeFraternal TwinsSteer Away from That DarknessSeasonus ExodusBodock, 1816–1834The Parable of the LungStubborn as a Fence PostHeartwormsFrison the BisonTwenty MileOfferings