A Dangerous Profession: A Book About the Writing Life - Softcover

Busch, Frederick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0767903986 ISBN 13: 9780767903981

Publisher: Crown, 1999

Synopsis

Frederick Busch has a voracious appetite for reading and writing great literature. A Dangerous Profession explores this passion in a series of thoughtful, funny, insightful essays on topics ranging from books encountered during his boyhood in Brooklyn to the etiquette of literary critique learned once he had become a published author. Vividly describing his career's growth as he coped with financial insecurity and scavenged for private writing spaces (such as his bathroom), Busch's lovingly written memoir also encompasses the quirky hardships encountered by his heroes, who include Dickens, Melville, Hemingway, and Graham Greene. This affectionate and inspiring tribute to those who live the writing life is also a celebration of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature at its finest.

About this title

Review

"Read this book if you are a beginning writer who wants the assurance that others, too, have written, submitted, and been rejected over and over again. Read it if you are an established writer and want to see the continuing doubt and despair of those who have produced great books."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Animated ruminations on the risks and rewards of writing. . . . By conveying with passion and insight why a literary work moves him, Busch excites the reader to read or reread books that have long gone stale in our imaginations. Writing and reading are reunited by an author who shows himself to be a sharp reader, too."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Few literary aficionados are better qualified than Busch to write about the writing life. . . . Busch knows fiction inside and out, both as a perceptive reader and a versatile writer, and he forges a powerful philosophy of literature over the course of sixteen vibrant essays."
--Booklist

"Think of a more cerebral version of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird and you'll have some notion of this valuable hybrid, which combines heartfelt memoir with an ardent love of literature."
--Publishers Weekly

A New York Times Notable Book

About the Author

Frederick Busch is the author of six story collections and twelve novels, most recently The Night Inspector. He has been honored for his fiction by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is a recipient of the PEN/Malamud Prize for achievement in the short story. The Fairchild Professor of Literature at Colgate University, he lives in upstate New York.

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0767903986
• ISBN 13: 9780767903981
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256