John Benitz News Today

Richard Bausch's new novel, 'Playhouse,' reflects his lifelong fixations on 'King Lear,' anxiety and lessons learned in classrooms and cocktail parties.

Photograph by Emily J. Davis One letter was written by a Black soldier fighting for the Union Army to the woman who had enslaved his daughter. Another, written by a Confederate soldier, was pulled off the soldier’s dead body. A sailor, trapped aboard a ship, dashed off a note as Japanese planes were bombing Pearl Harbor. A prisoner of war during World War II scrawled a message on the back of a family photo, shortly before his death. An army sergeant who had pilfered Adolf Hitler’s personal ...