If you crave a book filled with comic youthful yarns or riveting war tales, this one is not for you. Dust to Dust is not so much a memoir as a meditation, an effort by a man to understand life.  We go, we do, but why, and whither?

Busch essays his philosophy through retrospective chapters with themes that are tactile and elemental—soil, stone, and ultimately, ash.  Busch experiences life through mixing himself physically with it; as a child he dug holes and damned streams; as a young man, he made art.  Now, a veteran and married man with children, he is building a home from a wrecked farmhouse in Michigan.

His prose can be lyrical—much of the books consists of descriptions of places outdoors.  At his center, he seems essentially stoic.  Dust to Dust feels a bit like a modern version of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations.  It is sober and almost obsessively rooted.

Busch has hacked, hauled, carved, sculpted, and built. Life, he finds, is a paradox—we relentless build despite knowing that in the end all we create will crumble; “dust to dust.”

Why we do despite knowing how it ends will vary from person to person; but for Busch the important thing seems to be the doing.  For what choice have we?  -Kevin R. Kosar

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