Here Roorbach builds an engaging portrait of the ’60s, its free-love and drug experiments, the naïve innocence of some and the restless violence of others. As his life crumbles, he’s transported back to that fateful summer when he searched for his brother, already involved in terrorist activities. He begins an affair with Roddy, a skier who’s already engaged, he assaults clerks at a hardware store and temporarily lands in a mental-health facility, and he very may well lose his coaching position. With the imminent revelation of his secret, memories encroach upon the present to leave Coop contemplating a life built on his brother’s death.
Tad Czako in a last-ditch effort to find their favorite son.
His deception, and the reasons for it, may soon be uncovered, as Coop’s parents have hired wily p.i. Compounding his grief is his inability to openly mourn Coop has spent the last 30 years claiming that Hodge is still alive and living underground as a fugitive. But Coop is haunted by the events of 1969, the year his older brother Hodge died. A former Olympic bronze medalist, he now coaches the US ski team and seems happily married to the formidable Madeline. Superficially, Coop Henry has an enviable life. Poignant tales of hauntingly familiar situations, Bill Roorbach's stories are full of heart, romance, edgy humor, and the frequently concealed vulnerability of men.Roorbach ( Summers with Juliet, 1992, etc.) effectively juggles a number of themes in a slyly composed whodunit that’s also a paean to burying the bones of the past. In the tiitle story, "Big Bend," a grieving widower, troubled by his own waning years, is tempted by a seductively attentive birdwatcher no older than his daughter. A struggling young artist goes home for the holidays in search of succor for the stomach―and heart―with poor results in "Thanksgiving." Other stories recount the ultimately disastrous reunion of estranged friends, an unemployed architect's foolish courting with bad company, and a middle-aged rock star's struggle with the urge to settle down. In "Fog," a teenage boy learns hard lessons about canoes, the Gulf of Maine, sex, and love. Through quirky plots, one-of-kind characters, and more than a few twists, the stories in Big Bend examine gentle-hearted men and their relationships.įrom made-in-heaven meetings to troublesome liaisons, Roorbach's characters experience romance in unexpected, sometimes disastrous ways.
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