"A beautiful and aching novel, alarming in its wisdom and
treatment of one of the great terrors, loneliness, and
one of the great mercies, forgiveness."
—RICK BASS
A novel of families, what tears them apart and what can bring them back together, A Hole in the Earth is an extraordinarily, sometimes excruciatingly accurate portrait of a man charting the foreign territory of his feelings.
Henry Porter’s summer begins when his daughter Nicole—whom he hasn't seen in five years—shows up on his doorstep. Days later, his girlfriend, Elizabeth, announces that she is pregnant. That Henry is speechless at these two events throws into sharp relief his emotional landscape, and this novel charts that landscape’s exact contours. Anyone who has ever wondered what a man is saying when he isn't talking will find a large part of the answer here.
Robert Bausch deciphers with perfect economy and unstinting honesty the code embodied in this man's (and a great many men's) words and actions, and discovers the world of family legacies, love and abuse in equal measure. A Hole in the Earth brilliantly draws the webs that attract us to and repel us from our families, as well as the enduring strength that they can provide.
ROBERT BAUSCH is the author of four novels and a collection of short stories. A Hole in the Earth, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year as well as a Washington Post Book World Favorite Book of the Year.