“Almighty Me” by Robert Bausch

Introduction

Almighty Me (1991), Bausch's third novel, concerns the cosmically ironic actions of a car salesman who is given the powers of God for one year. The novel points to the possibility that Catholic doctrine twines and weaves its way, subtly, throughout the short fiction, but openly in the novels. The author of three novels and one collection of short fiction, Robert Bausch write deft narratives that invite examination, refuse easy answers, and embrace a Universalist vision of the human condition. All of his fiction interrogates the ways in which individuals, especially men, struggle with their inability to sustain the only fine thing in their lives: their authentic connections to family as an anchor (Steinberg, 45-50).

His ambivalence about the paradox of order powers his work: human beings live under the thumbs of systems and institutions that crush their spirits; yet, they require order and ritual lest they fragment into solipsism. Bausch's short fiction is especially luminous; in it he tends to avoid direct thematic statement in favor of suggestion and implication. In the stylistic tradition of Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, and John Cheever, Bausch presents deceptively simple narratives in which little of major moment occurs (Lee, 33-39). In the narrative tradition of Henry James, and perhaps Raymond Carver, he tends to focus on character development more than plot. He establishes a matrix within which his characters must exist--usually a tacit, mainstream one that the reader supplies.

About the Author

One of six children, Robert Charles Bausch was born April 18, 1945, into a devout Catholic family in which storytelling was prized. Educated at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Bausch served in the United States Air Force and worked at a number of jobs, including taxi driver and salesman, before becoming a teacher of writing in 1975. He has taught at various times at George Mason University, American University in Washington, D.C., the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. His first novel, On the Way Home, was published in 1982. Like his 1984 follow-up, The Lives of Riley Chance, it earned praise from major newspapers like the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

Discussion

"Almighty Me," Robert Bausch's lively comic novel, offers what might be the male version. The stakes are higher here, more grandiose: a lucky jerk gets to be God for a year. Remember "Queen for a Day" on daytime television? Housewives told about their misfortunes, and the one judged most genuinely pathetic was crowned "Queen for a Day" and given many valuable prizes, such as kitchen appliances and enough groceries for half a year.

Mr. Bausch's hero and first-person narrator is an affable car salesman named Charlie Wiggins who plies his wares in some vast suburban Midwest of the mind. A basically decent fellow, who cracks wise but is a naif at heart, he boasts of his devotion to his wife, Dorothy, and their two daughters. Alas, Dorothy's affections have been poisoned by "therapists and feminists." Taking trendy courses at the local university, where patriarchy is under assault, Charlie's ...