HARRY AND CATHERINE

by Frederick Busch ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 9, 1990

Prolific Busch (War Babies, Absent Friends, etc.) here offers a love story set in Upstate New York and combined with some political intrigue. Though it sags melodramatically in places, it's his best fiction in some time: complex feelings are modulated while the political and romantic plots dovetail to good emotional effect. Harry is an ex-newspaperman, assistant now to a New York senator with presidential ambitions. He's assigned to see whether a shopping-mall parking lot will damage a pre-Civil War slave graveyard. Years ago, Harry was Catherine's lover and, in his 40s, he never married but carried the torch: ""I live alone because of love."" Catherine, meanwhile, runs a small gallery and sees Carter, who (too coincidentally) happens to be the contractor responsible for the controversial mall parking lot. The point of view shifts among these three, with minor digressions elsewhere. As Harry begins again to claim the attentions of Catherine and becomes her lover, the two men have it out--Harry to Carter: ""You think a man like me can steal a woman like that?. . .Who ever told her what to do?"" Carter to Catherine: ""Were you waiting all this time for Harry?"" The love story drives forward on the fuel of such implausible but affecting fidelity as Catherine and Harry make up their minds about each other; the political intrigue occasionally bogs down, but finally Harry visits archrival Carter to admit that the senator wants to make ""a fuss over buried black people"" in order ""to be president."" Carter, his big contract ruined, digs up the bones and reburies them with the help of Harry and Catherine and her son Bobby. ""Need's need,"" Catherine says to Harry. A book about digging up old bones is seldom so literal, but here at least Busch has it both ways: a moving love story with social resonance.

Pub Date: March 9, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990

Categories: FICTION