Andre Dubus

A Literary Life

Andre Dubus: A Literary Life recounts the life of the famed American writer while also providing deep and acute analysis of his stories and novellas often from a biographical perspective. Author Patrick Samway, S. J., a specialist in the literature of the American South who received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was not only a friend of the late Andre Dubus but also a spiritual counselor. Uniquely situated to explore Dubus’s life, Samway presents an accurate and profound portrayal of a writer who explored the depths of the human heart often in conflict with itself.

Dubus (1936–1999) was born and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he grew up devoutly Catholic—a faith that often left an impact on his work. After serving in the Marines for eight years, he received his MFA at the Writers’ Workshop in Iowa and later had a successful career for seventeen years as professor of literature at Bradford College in Haverhill, Massachusetts. His oeuvre includes one novel and numerous short story and essay collections, including Broken Vessels, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Several of his stories have been adapted into films.

Dubus’s personal life was often marred by tragedy that deeply influenced his work: three divorces greatly impacted his life, the lives of his former wives, and those of his six children; a severe car accident that resulted in the loss of one of his legs; and reoccurring bouts of loneliness and depression. Though it would have been easy to allow his nether self to become dominant, Dubus was aware of life’s convergent blessings in such a way that he rose—sometimes anxiously and hesitatingly—above the negativity that almost enveloped him, freeing him to create an extensive and influential body of work still beloved by readers today.

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