Fiction
A novel in vignettes, Father Flashes, won the first Catherine Doctorow Prize for Innovative Fiction. In the book’s foreword, Carole Maso writes “I think of the novel as a form – its elasticity, its capacity to create wonder and terror and beauty.”
"Bauer tells a heartfelt and humorous story about a young girl's journey toward self-discovery and the meaning of family." Booklist
"Bauer's prose flexes with the narrative muscle of a veteran author... The real delight here, however, is Bauer's graceful and tender exploration of two people with extraordinary dreams finding happiness in plain, ordinary ways." Publishers Weekly
"The promise of Bauer's quietly acute story collection, Working Women, is movingly realized in this contemporary odyssey of a retired couple who journey with their young grandaughter through America amid upcropping dangers and fears." Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"The author's real focus is on the subtle discoveries that shape our ideas about ourselves -- about what we are and what we may become...Ms. Bauer's prose is as unpretentious as most of her characters, but its accumulation of simple, apparently artless detail sometimes leads to surprising depths, abrupt revelations of life's possibilities as well as its pain." The New York Times Book Review