Girls A Novel

ANew York TimesNotable Book In the unrelenting cold and bitter winter of upstate New York, Jack and his wife, Fanny, are trying to cope with the desperate sorrow they feel over the death of their young daughter. The loss forms a chasm in their relationship as Jack, a sardonic Vietnam vet, looks for a way to heal them both. Then, in a nearby town, a fourteen-year-old girl disappears somewhere between her home and church. Though she is just one of the hundreds of children who vanish every year in America, Jack turns all his attention to this little girl. For finding what has become of this child could be Jack's salvation--if he can just get to her in time. . . .

Frederick Busch is the recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and a fiction award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His last book, <b>The Children in the Woods</b>, was a finalist for the 1995 Pen/Faulkner Award. He has been acting director of the Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa and is currently the Edgar Fairchild Professor of Literature at Colgate University.