The intent of the book is literary, and the author takes some care in trying convey sensory aspects of those memories in prose. This is not a formal biography. While Busch served a couple of tours in Iraq as a Marine officer, the book is far from a journalistic account of that war experience; in fact, the book deals much more with childhood than with war.
Busch describes the book as being about memory and the way we remember -- a thought triggering a memory which links to another and so on. I accept that, and in fact I often found that his vignettes triggered memories in my of my own childhood.
Incidentally, Busch grew up the son of a well known writer and a librarian. He and his parents lived in rural upstate New York with a couple of stints in England. I gathered that much of his time as a boy was spent in fields and woods; he played in streams and built forts. He studied art at Vassar, had a show business career, exhibited his photographs, and done construction work. Not a common background. That he and I had common experiences as boys I suppose says something about boyhood.
As the title, Dust to Dust, suggests, a theme that flows through the book is the impermanence of what is. Everything is composed of repurposed material which is eventually given up to be again reused in another context. This is true of each of us of course, but it is also true of trees, of the waters in our streams and rivers, and even of the rocks in the landscape. Busch seems to have internalized this lesson, while it has not diminished his grief at the deaths of his parents nor his concern for the soldiers wounded while under his command.
A good book, worthy of your attention!
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