A powerful coda to Richard Bausch’s “brilliant” (The New York Times Book Review) World War II novel, Peace, the basis for the film Recon.
Originally published in Living in the Weather of the World, this poignant short story picks up the tale of American GI Robert Marson, who was improbably saved from death by a German solider, Eugene Schmidt. Seventy-two years later, the two men are poised to reunite in Washington, D.C. Although they kept in touch after the war, it has been decades since their last meeting, a meeting which reshaped their relationship, and not for the better. Now old men with children and grandchildren, Marson and Schmidt brace themselves to speak one last time, with their families—and the world—watching.
A story of nostalgia and regret, of memories forgotten and not, and of how the past never really leaves us, no matter what we may hope, Still Here, Still There is the dazzling final chapter to one of Richard Bausch’s most revered works, and a tribute to the enduring legacy of the bravery of the men who fought in the Second World War.
RICHARD BAUSCH is the author of twelve novels and nine volumes of short stories. He is a recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers' Award, the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for his novel Peace. He is past chancellor of The Fellowship of Southern Writers, and his work is widely anthologized, including in Pushcart Prize Stories, The O. Henry Awards, Best American Short Stories, and New Stories from the South. He is on the Writing Faculty of Chapman University in Orange, California.
A powerful coda to Richard Bausch’s “brilliant” (The New York Times Book Review) World War II novel, Peace, the basis for the film Recon.
Originally published in Living in the Weather of the World, this poignant short story picks up the tale of American GI Robert Marson, who was improbably saved from death by a German solider, Eugene Schmidt. Seventy-two years later, the two men are poised to reunite in Washington, D.C. Although they kept in touch after the war, it has been decades since their last meeting, a meeting which reshaped their relationship, and not for the better. Now old men with children and grandchildren, Marson and Schmidt brace themselves to speak one last time, with their families—and the world—watching.
A story of nostalgia and regret, of memories forgotten and not, and of how the past never really leaves us, no matter what we may hope, Still Here, Still There is the dazzling final chapter to one of Richard Bausch’s most revered works, and a tribute to the enduring legacy of the bravery of the men who fought in the Second World War.
RICHARD BAUSCH is the author of twelve novels and nine volumes of short stories. He is a recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers' Award, the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for his novel Peace. He is past chancellor of The Fellowship of Southern Writers, and his work is widely anthologized, including in Pushcart Prize Stories, The O. Henry Awards, Best American Short Stories, and New Stories from the South. He is on the Writing Faculty of Chapman University in Orange, California.
