Bodock: Stories

by Robert Busby

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.


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

288 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 3, 2025

Reviews

[Lauren Rhoades · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this gritty and propulsive collection of stories set in North Mississippi in the mid 90s. All the characters are compelling, especially when they’re behaving badly. The writing is excellent.

[Catherine Mincy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book when it came out because it was mentioned by several other authors I like. Ended up picking it up in the weeks following our recent ice storm. How appropriate!

The author is from nearby Pontotoc Mississippi and this series of short stories all take place in or around mythical Bodock, Mississippi set in NE Mississippi. (Why is it all my favorite authors keep making up NE Mississippi towns?) They are mostly set in the time period surrounding the 1994 ice storm that laid our area to waste.

Beyond the familiar environment, Busby’s characters are like real people I know and his dialogue is authentic. I greatly enjoyed the entire book.

My only question would be the actual Bodock tree itself. I googled and found that this is what I’ve heard called a horse apple tree all my life. They were the bane of my daddy’s existence and I watched him cut many of them down at the roots when he discovered them growing in our pastures. The thorns are a Darwinian weapon protecting the trees from anything that would come close. Point in fact, Daddy would sometimes take a shotgun and shoot the trunk if the branches were hanging too low to get near the trunk without being sliced up by the thorns.

Highly recommend for those who enjoy contemporary Southern literature!

[David Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Busby’s small town in the North Mississippi hill country is fictional, but the time frame is chillingly (for those of us who remember it) real — the 1994 Mid-South Ice Storm. (It’s one of the two iconic weather events of my nearly 40 years in Memphis, along with 2003’s Hurricane Elvis windstorm.) My favorite in the collection is a cracking good ghost story, “Twenty Mile,” that I enjoyed so much I found myself wishing it were the start of a novel, set in the spectral town of the title, in that “province of ghosts.” The rest of the book is more grounded in gritty reality, though you might sense a ghost there, too — of the great Larry Brown. Highly recommended. (Hub City Press, 2025).

[Mary Beech · Rating 4 out of 5]

Busby is an excellent writer, with crisp, poignant and engrossing storytelling. I love short stories, and these were varied yet centering on the town of Burdock, MS and its colorful inhabitants. The last story, Offerings, is the longest and the best - but despite the clear links to Bodock, felt like it was from a different book.

[Toby LeBlanc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bodock is the South. Busby fits every piece of this convoluted place into these 11 stories. He does so with a deft touch few current authors possess. While he wields every tool of the Grit Lit arsenal, each story feels fresh. Twenty Mile had the perfect amount of magical realism. And the ending. My God. Well done, Busby.

[Will Manuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book for the title—my brothers and I used to have to cut up Bodock trees for firewood. This guy’s style reminded me some of Larry Brown. I enjoyed the stories and how they loosely connected.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew. There are a number of stories worth reading in this collection, but "Offerings" is the crown jewel. Gut punch and catharsis, it both ties the collection together and flags the author as a considerable talent.