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A Dangerous Profession: A Book About the Writing Life
Frederick Busch has an enduring love affair with great books, and here he brilliantly communicates his passion to us all. Whether expounding on Melville or Dickens, or celebrating Hemingway or O'Hara, he explains what literature can ineffably reveal about our own lives. For Busch, there was no other recourse save the "dangerous profession;" it was to be his calling, and in these piercing essays, he demonstrates that we as a culture ignore the fundamental truths about fiction only at our own peril. With keen ruminations that recall the critcs of yore- Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling, and Irving Howe-Busch, in this era of moral indirection, has revealed how the literature of our past is the key to our survival in the future.
245 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
7 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
About the author
Frederick Busch
71 books41 followersFrederick Busch (1941–2006) was the recipient of many honors, including an American Academy of Arts and Letters Fiction Award, a National Jewish Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award. The prolific author of sixteen novels and six collections of short stories, Busch is renowned for his writing’s emotional nuance and minimal, plainspoken style. A native of Brooklyn, New York, he lived most of his life in upstate New York, where he worked for forty years as a professor at Colgate University.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 11, 2017
As a hack writer myself, I picked up this book maybe hoping it would provide some insight and advice. My expectations were misplaced though as it didn't fully do that for me. The first part of the book is a sampling of the author's short stories and autobiographical information. I liked that part of the book. Very good stuff and interesting to aspiring authors. Then the second part hit and it was like an anchor going over the side of a boat. The book dives down in to the deep dark pit of literary analysis (which I personally cannot stand and see such comments as drivel derived from the opinions of English professors with too much time on their hands). The author makes it sound like a great epiphany that authors books are based on or heavily include facets of their own personal lives.....gee, who knew? It did at least drive me to Google to learn about some of the authors (Melville, Dickens) and some of their lesser known works. The book picks up a bit with the last two or three chapters when he goes back to writing about authors and the meaning of writing to them. The Hemingway chapter is very good. So it starts off strong, plummets in the middle and picks up a bit at the end. A solid "three" in my humble opinion.
January 22, 2020
I bought this book at a library sale since it was written (and signed) by a man who lived and taught within a few miles of my home. I wonder if I ever saw him and just did not know who he was!
It is not a book for the weak of heart. It is wrenching in its thoughts about great literature, both the reading and the writing of such. One can see the dangers of the writing life and the impact it had on the great writers. It gives both warning and encouragement to those who want to be writers. It makes the reader "think hard" about the process of literature. Bush's philosophy of literature is complex and embodied in paradoxes. To understand all this is to be a lover or literature, for sure.
It is not a book for the weak of heart. It is wrenching in its thoughts about great literature, both the reading and the writing of such. One can see the dangers of the writing life and the impact it had on the great writers. It gives both warning and encouragement to those who want to be writers. It makes the reader "think hard" about the process of literature. Bush's philosophy of literature is complex and embodied in paradoxes. To understand all this is to be a lover or literature, for sure.
August 7, 2016
A master craftsman talks of his art and honors other writers.
I have been reading Fred Busch for over twenty years, but he practiced his craft of writing for nearly twice that long. I kept hoping for a memoir from Busch, as I always do from writers I admire, but he died in 2006, so this book will have to suffice. And A Dangerous Profession does not disappoint. It is worth the cover price for just three pieces alone, the ones which are the most autobiographical. In the first, "My Father's War", Busch tries mightily to understand more about his father's inner life by examining and speculating on what might have been implied "between the lines" of terse entries found in a small pocket journal that the senior Busch carried throughout his WWII years. Busch also here remembers his grandparents, "old country" folk. Two others, "The Writer's Wife" and "The Floating Christmas Tree", look at his marriage from the early days to more contemporary times. To his description of the lean early days of their marriage I could immediately relate: "We had seven dollars each week for food. Our rent was eighty-four dollars." As I remember, my wife and I budgeted five dollars for food and our rent was seventy-five dollars. I read passages from these essays aloud to my wife, who snorted and chuckled in recognition of those lean early days. There continue to be hints and glimpses of the kind of man Fred Busch was in the other fine essays in the book - about other writers, people as diverse as Melville (an obvious favorite, who even became a main character in Busch's The Night Inspector), Kafka, John O'Hara, Graham Greene, Hemingway, and a couple writers I'd never heard of: Terrence des Pres and Leslie Epstein, who obviously have written eloquently of the Jewish experience. Busch, who calls himself a "secular Jew," was a friend and colleague of des Pres, and mourns the man's early accidental death. Busch tells of how he once peeked into a notebook des Pres was using and found the phrase: "Stories, first of all, store time." Later he tells of how badly he misses his friend, and how he wept because they could never talk again. When Fred Busch died, I read of it in the newspapers. I never met the man, but I felt such a sense of loss that I nearly wept, but I didn't. Instead I wrote a letter to his widow, telling her how much his writing had meant to me. She didn't know me, and I don't know if she got my letter, but I felt better. "Stories store time," his friend once noted. Fred Busch's stories - his life stored in carefully crafted words, phrases, sentences - will live a long time. This is a wonderful book; a tribute not just to the writing profession, but to the importance of language itself.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
I have been reading Fred Busch for over twenty years, but he practiced his craft of writing for nearly twice that long. I kept hoping for a memoir from Busch, as I always do from writers I admire, but he died in 2006, so this book will have to suffice. And A Dangerous Profession does not disappoint. It is worth the cover price for just three pieces alone, the ones which are the most autobiographical. In the first, "My Father's War", Busch tries mightily to understand more about his father's inner life by examining and speculating on what might have been implied "between the lines" of terse entries found in a small pocket journal that the senior Busch carried throughout his WWII years. Busch also here remembers his grandparents, "old country" folk. Two others, "The Writer's Wife" and "The Floating Christmas Tree", look at his marriage from the early days to more contemporary times. To his description of the lean early days of their marriage I could immediately relate: "We had seven dollars each week for food. Our rent was eighty-four dollars." As I remember, my wife and I budgeted five dollars for food and our rent was seventy-five dollars. I read passages from these essays aloud to my wife, who snorted and chuckled in recognition of those lean early days. There continue to be hints and glimpses of the kind of man Fred Busch was in the other fine essays in the book - about other writers, people as diverse as Melville (an obvious favorite, who even became a main character in Busch's The Night Inspector), Kafka, John O'Hara, Graham Greene, Hemingway, and a couple writers I'd never heard of: Terrence des Pres and Leslie Epstein, who obviously have written eloquently of the Jewish experience. Busch, who calls himself a "secular Jew," was a friend and colleague of des Pres, and mourns the man's early accidental death. Busch tells of how he once peeked into a notebook des Pres was using and found the phrase: "Stories, first of all, store time." Later he tells of how badly he misses his friend, and how he wept because they could never talk again. When Fred Busch died, I read of it in the newspapers. I never met the man, but I felt such a sense of loss that I nearly wept, but I didn't. Instead I wrote a letter to his widow, telling her how much his writing had meant to me. She didn't know me, and I don't know if she got my letter, but I felt better. "Stories store time," his friend once noted. Fred Busch's stories - his life stored in carefully crafted words, phrases, sentences - will live a long time. This is a wonderful book; a tribute not just to the writing profession, but to the importance of language itself.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
August 6, 2007
I have much respect for Busch as a writer. His story "Ralph the Duck" is one of my favorites. And he recently passed away. I picked this book for these reasons. Also, as a "boost" to my writer psyche.
His depiction of what it means to be a writer... His history as a writer and insights regarding writers he respects: Melville, Hemingway, O'Hara, Graham Greene, among others. His obvious commitment to writing and writers. His memories of friend and writer Terrence Des Pres--how writers inspire and aggravate and need each other, all at once. Also, the long haul of politics and editors. The man loved writers & writing.
His depiction of what it means to be a writer... His history as a writer and insights regarding writers he respects: Melville, Hemingway, O'Hara, Graham Greene, among others. His obvious commitment to writing and writers. His memories of friend and writer Terrence Des Pres--how writers inspire and aggravate and need each other, all at once. Also, the long haul of politics and editors. The man loved writers & writing.
April 16, 2016
A book about writing and being a writer; a little too enamoured of the high and noble suffering of writing for me, and (ironically considering his very good essay on Hemingway is very aware of this flaw) a little too macho about it all. Still, thoughtful and insightful, just coming at things from a rather different angle than me.
June 9, 2014
I didn't realize so much of this was literary criticism-- something I don't read much. The first few chapters have some great stuff about writing. Other chapters were about writers and works I haven't read.
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July 15, 2010excellent & even
August 31, 2012
Parts of this are really good. Other parts are forgettable.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews