Tricia Bauer - Gradual decomposition of all that is familiar and of a daughter’s gathering of memories to form the arresting collage

Tricia Bauer, Father Flashes, Fiction Collective 2, 2011.

"Father Flashes reimagines what the novel can be or do. Composed of stunning vignettes that capture the deterioration of a father’s mind and body, this novel provides poetic insight into the complex workings of a father-daughter relationship. As the father collapses, what appears is the daughter’s struggle to simply cope. In prose composed of intense and moving shards, Tricia Bauer delivers a revealing account of the gradual decomposition of all that is familiar and of a daughter’s gathering of memories to form the arresting collage that is Father Flashes."

“Father Flashes by Tricia Bauer is a beautifully written memoir and tribute. A father’s personality, his essence, is preserved even as his disappearing is documented. These flashes linger in the reader’s mind, and all together they build the life that must have been.” —Bobbie Ann Mason

“Suffused with tenderness, Tricia Bauer’s Father Flashes is at once austere and lavish, simple and complex, troubling and serene. How to describe the feeling exactly? One feels in familiar territory: a parent will dim and eventually die. A child will grieve. Why then does reading Father Flashes feel so surprising—at once so natural and so frightening?” — From the foreword by Carole Maso

Tricia Bauer, Shelterbelt, St. Martin's Press, 2000.

"A journey unreels within a journey in this winsome but wandering novel about a pregnant Nebraska teenager coming to terms with her brother's death. The family of high school senior Jade Engler is still mourning the drowning of her much-bullied younger brother, Benjamin, a year ago, as well as the loss of their Paradise, Neb., farm. Jade's mother has taken off; her father's become a militiaman, establishing a liaison with a vehemently pro-life girlfriend; and Jade herself is living a clich : pregnant, she is "the ignorant country girl in trouble." Refusing to be trapped by circumstance, Jade flees the falsely protective shelterbelt (the term denotes the barrier of trees and shrubs that protects crops) of the familiar, striking out for an au pair job in a wealthy Connecticut household, where she plans to weighs her options. There, she begins an epistolary exchange with her mother, Rexanne, about her pioneer forebears. The stories Rexanne tells inspire Jade to complete the journey her ancestors attempted long ago, traveling from the East Coast to California by train. The mystery of Benjamin's death remains tantalizingly unsolved and Jade's initial comparisons of Nebraska and Connecticut are amusing but quickly grow tiresome, what with the nobility of farm lifeDmilitiamen and allDinvariably winning out against the vacuity of the wealthy. Worse, Rexanne's letters, written in neutral documentary form, afford all the interest of perusing a stranger's genealogical research. It's as if two different stories got somehow shackled togetherDone a contemporary teen pregnancy tale, the other a saga of wagons westDand never mesh effectively. Bauer (Boondocking; Hollywood & Hardwood) does write with verve and grace, however, managing to make Jade's plight compelling despite all the narrative detours." - Publishers Weekly

"Jade Engler is a pregnant teenager living in Paradise, Nebraska. After her brother, Benjamin, died, her family fell apart and she took solace in sex. Now, too afraid to tell her father and his pro-life girlfriend she wants an abortion, Jade drops out of school and becomes a nanny in Connecticut. While working, she decides to have the baby and tracks down her mother, Rexanne, who is obsessed with the past and convinces Jade to go with her to Chicago under the pretense of tracing their family history. When Jade realizes Rexanne wants to hook up with her new boyfriend and raise her baby, she gets on a train for Nebraska but goes all the way to San Francisco. What she finds there ultimately brings her closer to her family. Bauer tells a heartfelt and humorous story about a young girl's journey toward self-discovery and the meaning of family. Although the pace drags as Bauer traces Jade's family history, her writing is strong as she explores her characters' grief and guilt surrounding Benjamin's. - Booklist

Tricia Bauer, Hollywood & Hardwood: A Novel, Bridge Works, 1999.

"Lou, a playwright, and Renata, an actress, meet and fall almost immediately in love at summer stock in Vermont. Against the cynical wagers of friends and family, but in a dream of love and matching ambitions, they marry. Nine years later, they are still working hard in New York at their crafts (and trying to escape their crushingly blue-collar backgrounds). Each chapter of Bauer's affecting second novel (after Boondocking and her well-reviewed short-story collection, Working Women and Other Stories) chronologically advances their story, some events related from Lou's point of view, some from Ren's, yet each chapter stands alone like a finely etched short story, economically recounting the episodes that shape them. Bauer skillfully observes Lou's first successful off-Broadway play and the breathlessly rave reviews; a visit from Ren's coarse parents and her more appealing brother; an anticipated dinner party with the couple's oldest friends, clogged with envy after Lou's stage success has earned him a screenplay contract; a Hollywood fete for Lou; and, later, a portrait of Hollywood screenwriters on the downslope. Bauer's prose flexes with the narrative muscle of a veteran author. During Lou and Ren's idealistic early years, she adopts a yearning, poetic tone, and when the couple find themselves scrambling for odd jobs at midlife, Bauer smoothly and affectionately comes down to earth. Bauer sustains the reader's uncertainty as to whether the sharp twists in their precarious careers will sink Ren and Lou's tenacious passions or whether they will salvage hope and stay together. The real delight here, however, is Bauer's graceful and tender exploration of two people with extraordinary dreams finding happiness in plain, ordinary ways." - Publishers Weekly

"In her second novel, Bauer (Boondocking, LJ 8/97) repeats the feat of revealing surprising depths in the human psyche. As Lou and Renata struggle with family, friends, fellow actors and playwrights, stardom, and, finally, their own relationship, Bauer is able to invest their lives with humor and warmth. Though the reader may not be a an aspiring actress like Renata or, like Lou, a promising playwright who may have missed his chance, the situations depicted here are familiar. When the couple moves to Connecticut and visits Renata's parents, she tries to explain what they do: "She and Lou didn't work in a hospital or a restaurant where they could pick up and put down just anywhere...but even as she spoke, she knew it was impossible to act professional for long." Bauer is strong on the true nature of characters within families. The result is an insightful novel that looks at a choice that really matters: either success or honesty and compassion. Highly recommended." - Vicki J. Cecil
Tricia Bauer, Boondocking: A Novel, Bridge Works, 1997.

"The promise of Bauer's quietly acute story collection, Working Women (1995), is movingly realized in this contemporary odyssey of a retired couple who journey with their young granddaughter through America amid upcropping dangers and fears. For 15 years on the road--that "fast forward'' landscape of "stores, campsites, road signs'' - there are brief dockings within the convivial culture of the "common backyard'' of the transient retired; painful touchdowns at old places that can still claim them; and repeated sightings of the detested son-in-law who has vowed to regain his daughter. Sylvia and factory worker Clayton had lived in their Maryland home for 31 years. Their only child, Janice, died when her husband Melvin, high on angel dust, crashed the car. The couple fought for and won custody of baby Rita, and so the trailer they'd bought for a vacation becomes a permanent home. For Sylvia, the old home and its possessions, empty of Janice, had been empty of meaning; now with Rita, even in a tiny space, there is "proof that once we lived like everyone else,'' a family. There's an initial exhilaration and a sense of adventure that give way to the odd stability of motion. Sylvia and Clayton, though, have a more complex agenda than their retired peers, who seem to be attempting to outrun death. They must keep Rita safe from Melvin, a specter in pursuit. (Rita, wise at 12, fascinated but afraid, imagines him as an ant, scurrying over a map of the US.) Rita will dream of herself driving her grandparents "to a country where they'd feel totally safe.'' When she's 16, Melvin is finally, successfully faced down, and, shorn of his demonic aura, vanishes. At the close, Rita, having learned something necessary about reality and the nature of love, goes on her own quest. A gentle tale of good people moving through a prosaic yet curiously charged landscape, giving new shading to the concepts of home and family." - Kirkus Reviews

Tricia Bauer, Working Women and Other Stories, Bridge Works, 1995.

"Sometimes too cryptic and sometimes too obvious, this debut collection of short stories nevertheless shows mastery of the form. Set in a number of East Coast locales, these 14 pieces do not reflect regional color or character, but rather set forth accounts of ordinary, anyplace lives that are occasionally interrupted by a fresh peculiarity. The standout is "The Graveyard," in which the aging Darla tests the tolerance of passersby and her husband by flooding her front yard with tacky lawn ornaments, as if each statue marked something lost to her: her daughters, her neighbors, her education. "Visiting Hours" is a funny, poignant tale: the narrator writes newspaper obituaries with such accuracy that she wins the gratitude of all the town's funeral directors. "Working Women" is a fine piece, but the ending is frustratingly ambiguous. Taken as a whole, the collection holds together through recurring characters (in "Beds" and "Dogs") as well as such themes as transformation ("Dancing with the Movies," "Panama"), estrangement ("Nocturne," "The Blue Room") and autonomy ("Pot o' Gold," "Fortunes"). The voice in these thought-provoking stories is sweet?but not saccharine." - Publishers Weekly

"This collection of short stories presents tiny pieces of the ordinary lives of contemporary women, but in Bauer's gifted voice these vignettes convey the importance of small details in all lives. A sales executive in publishing whose stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines, Bauer here captures the essence of what moves people most: their hopes and dreams, their disappointments and quirks, what is, what will be, what can be. Thus, a simple lawn ornament causes a neighborhood dispute. Exacting attention to detail in an obituary creates a career. A steamy sauna reaffirms a 25-year romance. A fortune-teller's prediction encourages a fledgling to find her wings. Bauer's attentions make everyday life fresh and original, reminding us that it is the little things that make the difference. Recommended for most collections." - Joanna M. Burkhardt