Bodock: Stories

In 1994, the real Mid-South Ice Storm strikes the fictitious town of Bodock in Claygardner County, Mississippi. In the wake of the storm, what is left unbroken, and what broken things can be rebuilt? Hailed by Maurice Carlos Ruffin as “leaving no feeling untouched,” Robert Busby’s debut balances grit with heart, violence with depth, and tragedy with humor.

Two siblings survey the damage to their family’s orchard after the storm while their rich nephew circles in the hopes of buying up the property. A slacker divorcee drives his ex-father-in-law to his lung transplant surgery. A cop tries to piece his broken family back together in the wake of the loss of his son. In 1816, a farmer’s wife plots with an enslaved woman to stop her husband from committing a terrible act. And in a town that is not quite Bodock, a population of ghosts reckon with their unsettled pasts. In the spirit of Brad Watson’s Last Days of the Dog-Men, Bodock traverses time and dimensions to surface the struggles of the everyday.

Bodock: Stories is the winner of the 2024 C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize.

Praise for Bodock: Stories

“Spanning fable, crime, and realist literary fiction, this collection of stories leaves no feeling untouched. By capturing the nuances and complexities of these southern characters with an unfailing eye Bodock: Stories presents a universe of experience filled with darkness, humor, and desire.” —Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author of The American Daughters

“With Bodock: Stories, Robert Busby has affixed his own postage stamp to the great and troubled state of Mississippi. The range in these eleven stories is impressive, from short-short to novella, realism to magic realism, young folk to old, historical to contemporary, white to Black, owner to enslaved—and Busby handles all skillfully and with great empathy. William Faulkner has said that to understand the world, one must understand a place like Mississippi. Well, here’s Bodock. Here’s Mississippi. Here is the world.” —Tom Franklin, author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

“Bodock: Stories reads like a desperate confession. A million hurts, shames, and damn mistakes whispered into a lover's ear in the silent black of midnight as the ice gathers on the eaves, with the terrifying hope that the sun will still dare to rise, that we can survive this storm and start again, battered, but forgiven. Busby is devastatingly honest and brazenly hopeful, Bodock: Stories is a striking debut full of insight and variety.” —Meagan Lucas, author of Here in the Dark

“Robert Busby’s considerable genius is that he sees what the rest of us are unwilling to see and says what we are unable to say. Bodock: Stories is an ambitious and radiant debut collection that reminds me of the hilarious and heartbreaking stories of Lewis Nordan and Flannery O’Connor, and it doesn’t get better than that. Busby writes with energy, savvy, poise, and tenderness. When I finished Bodock: Stories, I walked around for days seeing the world through its lens. Do yourself a favor, buy this book and get in on the secret before everyone else knows what you soon will: here is the future of Southern fiction.” —John Dufresne, author of My Darling Boy