Good Evening Mr. and Mrs. America, and All the Ships at Sea

by Richard Bausch

The critics have been effusive in their praise for Richard Bausch's Good Evening Mr. and Mrs. America and All the Ships at Sea .His hardover sales have also never been higher. Taking its title from Walter Winchell's famous radio salutation, Good Evening Mr. and Mrs. America opens in Washington, DC, in 1964, just after the Kennedy assassination, telling the story of Walter Marshall, an idealistic 19-year-old who lives with his widowed mother and studies to be a journalist like his hero, Edward R. Murrow. In this coming-of-age novel in the truest sense of the phrase, young Marshall fumbles toward manhood in a nation that is itself in the midst of cataclysmic change. With the same elegance and precision that has distinguished his other novels, Richard Bausch has evoked a sense of time and place in a different America and brings the last 30 years of history profoundly and vividly to life.

Genres: Fiction, Coming Of Age, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

An acknowledged master of the short story form, Richard Bausch's work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Harper's, The New Yorker, Narrative, Gentleman's Quarterly. Playboy, The Southern Review, New Stories From the South, The Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, and The Pushcart Prize Stories; and they have been widely anthologized, including The Granta Book of the American Short Story and The Vintage Book of the Contemporary American Short Story.

Richard Bausch is the author of eleven novels and eight collections of stories, including the novels Rebel Powers, Violence, Good Evening Mr. & Mrs. America And All The Ships At Sea, In The Night Season, Hello To The Cannibals, Thanksgiving Night, and Peace; and the story collections Spirits, The Fireman's Wife, Rare & Endangered Species, Someone To Watch Over Me, The Stories of Richard Bausch, Wives & Lovers, and most recently released Something Is Out There. His novel The Last Good Time was made into a feature-length film.

He has won two National Magazine Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lila-Wallace Reader's Digest Fund Writer's Award, the Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, The 2004 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story and the 2013 John William Corrington Award for Literary Excellence . He has been a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers since 1996. In 1999 he signed on as co-editor, with RV Cassill, of The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction; since Cassill's passing in 2002, Bausch is the sole editor of that prestigious anthology. Richard Bausch teaches Creative Writing at Chapman University in Southern California

Reviews

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a thoughtful coming-of-age tale of a Walter Mitchell, a 19-year-old man young set in Washington DC. The year is 1964 with Kennedy's assassination still fresh in everyones thoughts, the Beatles have just come to America, racial tensions are building with the three young men recently murdered in the south, Johnson is running against Goldwater for the presidency and the situation in French Indochina is turning into the Vietnam war. Against that backdrop, Walter tries to be true to his convictions, but lives in dread of offending anyone and ends up bouncing about like a pinball. He ultimately gets his bearings but you're left with the feeling, knowing what's in the future, that he isn't out of the woods.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting novel about a group of young people a year after the assassination of J.F.K. The story particularly focuses on one young man in broadcasting school, who has visions of himself arising in the future as the next Kennedy-like president. A little corny at times, but this is more a reflection of the morals of the times rather than the writing itself.

[Benjamin Obler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well-written novel set in D.C. in the '60s. Though I have not read all his novels, I'm prepared to say it's Bausch at his best. Great story, and a great example of efficiency, focus and good length in a novel.

[NancyInWI · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book I found by browsing in the library and the title caught my eye. Remember little else other than it took place in the 60's which is when I was a teen, so it appealed to me.

[Ellen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was so bad I didn't finish reading it. 1950's setting was way to cheesey for me...

[Ann-Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you were too young or can't recall how the immediate months after the Kennedy assassination era felt, Mr. Bausch remembers how it was.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the story. I could see each character as they moved through the story.