The stories and sketches collected in The Buried Life offer an intimate perspective of people responding to challenges they encounter in dealing with the conditions of their lives. These vignettes revolving around a variety of story lines introduce a wide range of characters, some are set against the background of events during the 1940s and 1950s depicted in A Stirring of the Air, A Shifting of the Light. Others develop initial incidents in a culture changing over decades resulting in crises for people often resolving them in unexpected ways: Two men escape a gathering mountain storm in a surprising way. A narrator meets someone totally indifferent to the busy excitement of seeing Paris. A man faces the dilemma of choosing between a position at a national level with the prospect of greater income or remaining in one locally that will offer him more security but alienating him from his fellow workers. Another man struggles to accept the pain of betrayal and a dissolving marriage as he restores an antique auto. Offering a moving collection of stories, The Buried Life explores how people deal with self-doubt, psychic suffering, recurring painful memories, and the stinging regrets of the past.
