Description:
While the title novella of Dubus' Finding a Girl in America returns to the somewhat off-the-rails literary life of Hank Allison, the collection's opening story strikes a much darker tone: "Killings"--the basis of the Academy Award-nominated film In the Bedroom--is a swift tale of revenge that leaves readers wondering what they might do in the name of family love.
Dubus' prowess with narrative compression is on full display in the story "Waiting" the hollow ache experienced by a woman widowed by the Korean War took Dubus fourteen months to write and was more than one hundred pages in early manuscript form but spans a mere seven pages in published form.
Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Joyce Carol Oates called "The Pretty Girl"--the opening novella of The Times Are Never So Bad--"the most compelling and suspenseful work of fiction [Dubus] has written."
Richard Russo's introduction to this volume grapples with his complex feelings on reading Dubus' work over many decades, but when it comes to the much-anthologized masterpiece "A Father's Story," Russo writes: "I won't mince words. It's one of the finest stories ever penned by an American."
Brief description:
Andre Dubus (1936-1999) is considered among the most talented American short-story writers of his generation. Born and raised in Louisiana, he spent his adult life living and teaching in blue-collar mill towns in northern New England.
Dubus' short stories and essays appeared in distinguished literary journals and magazines across the country, and were selected for numerous editions of the Best American Short Stories series, as well as the O. Henry Award and Pushcart Prize anthologies. Dubus' work earned him MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Jean Stein Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and nominations for a National Book Critics Circle Award and Pulitzer Prize.
In addition to seven collections of stories and novellas, Dubus published one novel and two collections of essays. The award-winning films In the Bedroom and We Don't Live Here Anymore were adapted from his stories.
Dubus is buried in Haverhill, Massachusetts.
Review Quotes:
"Andre Dubus, one of the twentieth century's most gifted short-story writers...like Raymond Carver, became a master of the form."
-- "New York Times"