Frederick Busch, 1941-2006

Fred Busch was one of the authors I worked with in my first publishing job. We met only a few times--once I spent the day with him going to bookstores all over New York City as he signed copies of his novel Girls, a book I loved. A couple of years later he very generously helped me out when I needed a recommendation for graduate school. I'd been out of school so long and didn't know anybody to ask for a recommendation, and he offered, and wrote me a great one, and some very sweet letters. He tried to talk me out of going, sort of, but when I told him why I wanted to he'd understood: I was lonely. He once ran up a bill so big while on a book tour (I suspect fine scotches in the hotel bar) that I had to cover for him. He was a poet first, though he said not a very good one in his opinion. He liked his fiction more. He told me how he wrote his first novel sitting on the edge of his bathtub with his typewriter on the toilet lid while his wife slept in the next room, in his off hours from his copywriting job. I got out of publishing and went to write copy not too long after he told me that story, though I didn't stay completely away, when I came back I did it better. I don't know how I missed the news till now. I wrote him last about a year ago but hadn't gotten around to sending him my book yet. I really should have. Bye Fred.