From Amazon.com
Over two decades, Andre Dubus has proven himself an essential American writer. "He restores faith in the survival of the short story" (
Los Angeles Times), and now - with his first collection in nearly ten years - he demonstrates more powerfully than ever before both his mastery of the form and his understanding of our imperfect lives. In each of the fourteen stories in
Dancing After Hours, Dubus uncovers the mystery of ordinary life as his characters - often perseverant, yet occasionally crazed by desire, loss, or disappointment - wrestle with love, faith, and luck. Whether at a roadside bar or a family camp, in the everyday rigors of domesticity or its violent extremes, these lives unfold with an inevitability that is moving, sometimes redemptive, always surprising.
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From Publishers Weekly
Dubus's (Broken Vessels) first story collection in nearly a decade centers around the concerns that have informed all his writing: spirituality, Catholicism, adultery, love and the difficult attempt to sustain it through marriage and family-and, more broadly, the ways lives can suddenly change, sometimes with sudden cruelty, sometimes with grace. Two stories among the 14 here are particularly fine; both gain resonance from the way Dubus's own life was affected by a tragic accident. They are "The Colonel's Wife," about a retired Marine whose relationship with his wife is altered in complex and surprising ways after he breaks both his legs when his horse falls; and the magnificent title story, which concerns a man turned into a quadriplegic by a freak diving mishap, but whose continued zest for life helps bring other people together. Also very strong are the four stories that chronicle the lives of Ted Briggs and LuAnn Arceneaux, and their love for one another, by portraying their lives before they've met and tracing them through a decade of marriage. Dubus's material can be seen as either slightly old-fashioned or as timeless, particularly since he is unapologetically concerned with the spiritual and religious health of his characters. Hopefully, this collection will serve to introduce this important and consistently fine writer to the wider audience he has always deserved.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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