Not to dismiss acknowledged contemporary story writers like Updike, or Carver, or Doyle or Oates or a dozen others you may have read in school or out, Andre Dubus is BREATHTAKING! He captures the angst of the internal, the behavior of the external, the glint of the physical detail, the subtlety of emotion like NO other contemporary writer. After reading hundreds of short story writers, I have never been so moved and learned so much about he human heart. Put down your DSM-IV, therapists, put away the existential tracts of Camus & Sartre, and PLEASE put away that post-modern numbing theory. Learn about life through the characters, places and situations you shall discover among these brilliant tales. Now, here is a true anecdote. I had read a story in this collection "Killings," and said to myself, this would make a FABULOUS film. I was all set to translate fiction to the screenplay genre. It was going to be a stunning work no studio would turn down. Then low and behold, it was all in vain. This story became "IN THE BEDROOM," the award-winning film. So obviously, my intuitions were confirmed. Read these stories for confirmation of what it means to be alive, for here you will discover the principle behind Joseoph Campbell's remarks about the meaning of myth: "Life is struggle; life is pain, but by God, you know you're ALIVE!

I was 17 and a senior in high school when I came across an article in the paper about a series of benefit readings that were being held to raise money to pay for the medical bills for Andre Dubus. I called a number and got a schedule, and then agonized over which Saturday reading I would attend - should I go to hear Kurt Vonnegut and E.L. Doctorow or John Irving and Stephen King? I ended up choosing the latter (mainly because I had a crush on John Irving!)

In the weeks leading up to the reading, I thought it might be a good idea to find out more about this Andre Dubus, so I went to the bookstore and bought Adultery and Other Choices. I was astonished. I immediately borrowed every Andre Dubus book that was available at the library and devoured every word. I'm a New Englander and was raised in the Catholic church, and I related to Mr. Dubus' stories.

At the reading that Saturday, I had the honor of meeting Mr. Dubus. He was in a hospital bed, and was obviously still suffering from the accident, but he was smiling and seemed to be a little surprised at the size of the crowd. He was gracious when I thanked him for his stories. It makes me sad that there will be no new Andre Dubus stories, but I am so grateful for the ones he gave us while he was here, all too briefly.

I return to Andre Dubus whenever I get hungry for a really good short story. However, after recently experiencing a Matt Fowler's revenge in the movie, "In the Bedroom," I revisited this 1996 collection of short stories. That movie is based on one of the twenty-three, stunning stories collected here, "Killings." Novelist Barbara Kingsolver has said that "a good short story cannot simply be Lit Lite." Rather, "it is the successful execution of large truths delivered in tight spaces." Confronting issues including a bereaved father's revenge ("Killings"), abortion ("Miranda over the Valley"), difficult relationships ("Adultery," "The Winter Father," "Voices from the Moon," "The Pretty Girl," "The Pitcher," "Leslie in California"), religion ("If They Knew Yvonne"), obesity ("The Fat Girl"), fatherhood ("A Father's Story"), rape ("The Curse"), sexuality and death, Dubus triumphs in delivering profound truths in these "tight spaces." You won't find happily-ever-after endings here. Rather, these are emotionally compelling stories that feel too real to be fiction. And they will leave you coming back for more.

G. Merritt

Breece Pancake killed himself with a shotgun in Charlottesville, Virginia on Palm Sunday in 1979. He was 26 years old at the time and had just completed a graduate writing program at the University of Virginia. Four years later "The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake" was published, a collection of twelve stories that posthumously established his literary reputation as one of the finest short story writers in twentieth century American literature.

Pancake grew up in the hollows of West Virginia and each of the carefully wrought stories in this collection deals with the seemingly desperate lives of the working poor in that part of the country. They are remarkably crafted stories, written with a deep sense for the locale and the people from which they are drawn. They are also models of precision, the kind of stories that deserve to be read over and over, studied for the way in which they use foregrounding and the mundane details of everyday life--albeit everyday life that quietly screams with the desperation of poverty, deadening work, drinking, promiscuity, and brutality-to draw complex portraits of people who endure, even when endurance is no more than a substitute for hope. As he writes in "A Room Forever," the story of a tugboat mate spending New Year's Eve in an eight-dollar-a-night hotel room where he drinks cheap whiskey out of the bottle and eventually ends up with a teen-aged prostitute: "I stop in front of a bus station, look in on the waiting people, and think about all the places they are going. But I know they can't run away from it or drink their way out of it or die to get rid of it. It's always there."

The best of these stories are "Trilobites," "The Honored Dead," "Fox Hunters," and "In the Dry." But there really isn't a weak story in the bunch. Every story is captivating, every one an exemplar of what good short story writing should be. At the end, the only thing that disappoints, that leaves the reader discomforted, is the thought that Pancake died so young, that these are the only stories we have by a truly remarkable writer.

In this volume, the writer's surviving voice really hits home and stays there. Like that perfect song that stays in your head and carries you through the day, Breece Pancake's words and wisdom echoe through the reader's mind forever after reading them. In this life, there is always something around to remind of a Breece Pancake story. From the time weathered fossils in the creek beds to the rare West Virginia 120 m.p.h. strait stretches, after reading this volume I see Pancake everywhere, no matter where I am in the world. Like the trilobite preserved beneath the earth that hides it, these stories are a tangible (and for some reason widely unknown), history of a time and generation that, like the tragedy of Pancake's suicide, is destined to be repeated if ignored.

There are times when things come together in such a way that you know it's perfect. It can be a phrase of music, a blending of colors and sounds in film, or, in this case, the words of a story. This book tells stories that fall together in a timeless way, but are still firmly rooted in a specific place and time.

Having grown up in West Virginia, there were parts of these stories that spoke to me from a sort of "native" perspective. But more to it was the emotion that was the core, the skin and the stitching of each of these stories.

It's a good book to own. To read from when you feel like being taken to another place for a while. And to carry a piece of that place with you once you put the book down.

I've been a fan of Glimmer Train since I received my first issue several years ago. Subsequently, I started a gift basket service and now include Glimmer Train Stories in my gift baskets. Customers absolutely LOVE receiving them! For "people on the go," this collection of short stories is easy to pick up and read when you have just a few minutes. It also can provide hours of reading enjoyment if you have more time to spend.

Glimmer Train consistently delivers on top quality writers. This is a journal that truly cares about its writers, and it shows. The stories are carefully chosen, and are unique, original, witty-- intelligent choices. I get excited when I see Glimmer Train on the stand!

Glimmer Train has fascinating short stories which hold my attention from beginning to the end. The publication itself is quite classy with personal touches, such as photos of each author as a child and personal comments by the authors. Glimmer Train publications are absolutely first class and I highly recommend the publication to anyone who enjoys reading!

Andre Dubus wrote what is arguably the best short fiction of our generation. His stories are powerful and stay with the reader long after the book has been closed. The same is true of this book of tributes. Andre Dubus 111 wrote the foreword to the collection, a beautiful tribute to his relationship with his father. Tobias Wolff wrote the afterword. In between these pieces the book is filled with brief, intensely personal stories of the impact Andre had on people's lives. Contributors include Lee K. Abbott, Frederick Busch, James Lee Burke, Chris Offutt, Robert Olmstead, Tim Parrish, and many other fine writers. This book is an essential part of Andre's work, and should be read by anyone who admires his fiction.

This book is simply a masterpiece. It is an exceptionally well written and brilliantly told story of two people whose destinies become intertwined through a simple twist of fate. It is the story of what happens to them and to those who love them, when their respective worlds collide in a climactic and tragic ending.

It is the story of Colonel Behrani, a formerly wealthy Iranian, who had thrived under the regime of the Shah, only to lose everything during his country's revolution. Now, he and his family find themselves undergoing the immigrant experience in America, working to maintain appearances among their fellow exiles, and finding the going hard. Working long hours at menial jobs, Colonel Behrani longs to be a master of the universe again.

It is also the story of Kathy Nicolo, a woman with some serious issues. She is a sad and pathetic bottom feeder, who has lost nearly everything in life, including the one thing that has kept her somewhat anchored: the house she inherited from her father. She is a loser and innocuous bumbler who has totally squandered her life. When she loses that which she holds most dear, her house, and is summarily evicted from it, she meets Sheriff Lester Burden, a married man with children, who is smitten by her. His obsession with her would lead him down a path from which there would be no return.

When Colonel Behrani's quest for the American Dream finds him with an opportunity to buy a house at a bargain basement price at a county auction, he plunks down the remainder of his family's life savings. At the time, he knows nothing of the circumstances of the county's possession of that house, Kathy's house. He and his family move in. Colonel Behrani's head is filled with dreams of selling the house at a large profit, becoming a real estate speculator, and leading his family back to its former glory and place in society. He truly believes that America is the land of opportunity. He still believes in the American Dream.

Kathy, on the other hand, has done nothing with the opportunities afforded her. She has simply squandered them by marrying the wrong men, boozing, and drugging herself into oblivion. Living a marginal existence by cleaning houses and proving herself to be an untrustworthy and totally amoral person with little regard for others, her life is the antithesis of the American Dream. Still, she has this house, and when she loses it due to a bureaucratic error, the bottom totally falls out of her life. For now, she truly has nothing. Like a dog with a bone, she refuses to let the issue go and will stop at nothing to get her house back from the Behranis, whom she views as greedy usurpers. Her view of the situation is supported by Sheriff Lester Burdon, who becomes embroiled in Kathy's struggle and takes it to a level that not even Kathy could have anticipated.

As the author takes the reader to the book's climactic ending, the reader will not be able to put down this beautifully crafted, literary tour de force. The author evokes a distinct mood in his narrative of the Behrani family through a clever use of language and sentence structure that seems to match the syncopation of their first language, giving it a rich, three dimensional flavor. The language of Colonel Behrani has a rich infusion of the cultural milieu out of which he arose. It is a wonderful literary contrivance used to great effect by a very talented and gifted writer.

When the author writes about Kathy, the language and sentence structure of the narrative is simpler, looser, baser, and reflective of the individual around whom the author is trying to create a mood. Again he succeeds, as Kathy is a very primal character, unlike Colonel Behrani, who is more introspective. She is someone who ruins almost everything that she touches without meaning to do so. She is a person totally lacking in self-control. When she meets Sheriff Lester Burden, a tightly wound, conflicted man, very much in control of himself, his passion for her causes him to begin to lose his self-control. He begins a downward spiral that ends in a personal meltdown. The character of Kathy is somewhat pitiable, as she is the catalyst around whom the tragic events unfold. They unfold, however, in a way that she never intended.

This modern day Greek tragedy, with its layers of moral and cultural complexities, is a spellbinding and suspenseful page turner, crafted by an enormously talented author who is able to construct a rich and powerful novel of the first order. It is simply a great book. Bravo!

Within its peacetime military genre, this novel tells the truth about the young Marine Corps officer's life. He's under a senior Navy officer's command on an aircraft carrier stationed off Japan, when some enlisted men act pranks that can suggest homosexual associations. The Lieutenant is held responsible, as he remembers why he came to the Corps and what it means to him. Dubus has written many more successful books since this one, but this suggests some of his major themes.

From the wonderous humanity of EPICAC, the computer who loved a girl, to the simply yet imaginatively told story of "Thomas Edison's Shaggy Dog", to the black American soldier's relationship with a certain displaced person ("D.P.") to the title story's grim view of the future population (see also "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow", the last story in the collection), Vonnegut surprises with his humor, and then delivers a knockout punch with his pathos. *SPOILER* The story about the boy who cannot tell his parents that he didn't get in the School, and "The Kid Noone Could Handle" *END* Is the "fifty-year man" the real "Deer in the Woods"? One of my favorite stories has always been "More Stately Mansions" about the woman who yearns for a more perfect abode as collected and clipped from many home decorating magazines. The realism of his stories is kind of spooky sometimes. His prose writing is amazing--a master of the quick turn of phrase, the one-sentence description that reads like a book, the presence behind the prose somehow is able to make complex, profound ideas more simple, and vice versa. I first read this volume in 1974 on airplanes and while traveling to Africa at the age of 12. Some of it escaped me then, but by now I think I get it. And I recommend it highly!

Don't bi-pass "Welcome to the Monkey House" just because it's a short story collection. Next to "Slaughterhouse 5", this is easily the most necessary Vonnegut book to own. Here, he sets free both his imagination AND his senses of humor and adventure to come up with some of the best short works published in this century. Just look at this list: "Harrison Bergeron", "Thomas Edison's Dog", a truly hysterical piece on assisted suicide and a truly suspenceful piece on a game of chess played with real people. Most of these styles have since, of course,been copied to death. But has anyone really cut as deep or as precisely into the public consciousness as did Vonnegut here? One wishes he would have continued writing short stories, at least occasionally, and we could have more collections as diverse, entertaining, and thought provoking as this is. By itself, though, "Monkey House" is one residency to make sure you visit

Kurt Vonnegut's "Welcome to the Monkey House" was more than just a book of short stories, it was a work of art. Mr. Vonnegut creates a perfect blend of comedy, drama, action and suspense. He has a certain way of having tons of detail but not so much that it bores you. You feel as much a part of the story as the characters. One of the stories, "Epicac," takes place when the first super computer is created. One night, a man stays late and talks about his love life with the machine. The computer has great solutions for him that work out for the man. Then, the computer burns out trying to figure out why he can't be loved. Another story, "Welcome to the Monkey House," takes place when the population is so massive that sex is outlawed. When a man refuses to take his hormonal pills, the police look for him. He then kidnaps a girl and takes her to a hidden place where he has sex with her. It changes the woman's feelings in the process. This is a great book for any reader. I was hesitant as many when about to embark on reading it but don't regret it at all. I suspect many who read it will also have a problem putting it down as i did.

Shortly after finishing "Meditations from a Moveable Chair," I learned that Andre Dubus recently had died. I was surprisingly startled, considering he was a man I never knew and with whose writing I was merely acquainted. My reaction to the news of his death speaks a great deal about the quality and affect of Dubus's austere and confessional prose. Dubus frequently ends essays in the volume by recalling the moment of the piece's composition, as if he is offering not only an artifice, but the origin, the spot of time and emotion and weather from which the artifice emerged. In some cases this device seems almost redundant because his clean prose seemed already imbued with the sense of being written; especially in the essays recounting manual labor, jogging, or taking churchyard laps in his wheelchair, I imagined a man (resembling the man with a pensive scowl on the book's jacket) hammering away at a typewriter. Despite being about many quotidian things, Dubus's writing reminds me of a few lines of "Song of Myself": "Not words of routine this song of mine, / But abruptly to question, to leap beyond yet nearer bring." Although at times I thought Dubus was simply repeating himself, well, simply, I found the essays to be touching, memorable, and a pleasure to read. "Meditations from a Moveable Chair" is markedly anti-stoic: beneath its equivocal title, the volume effuses the pleasures and pain of life after a literal "wreck of body," and offers itself to its reader as a sacrifice and another one of Dubus's sacraments.

Andre Dubus prsents us with his most intimate thoughts about life and intimate relationships. He bares all, and, in doing so, creates a medium for communication with the the most inner emotions in us all. By writing of his fear, his anger and frustration, his inability to express deep felt emotions, he touches base with men,in particular, who share similar feelings; feelings that are often kept within oneself, but beg to be spoken of. This collection of essays is also a tribute to one mans's struggles with his faith in God and in his own humanity as he struggles with life's tragic events. Dubus shows us, by writing of his personal tragedies, that despite all we are survivors. We continue through life because we are continously in the process of becoming and are capable, if we permit it, of redefining ourselves as we or life demand it.

To enter the world of another mind is to discover we are all of one mind. Andre Dubus makes this possible by minding the business of living. Each grief, loss, and puzzlement he experiences is faced full on, letting us see how the prosaic details speak larger meanings when veiwed from the perspective of faith: life has meaning when I accept as a gift what I don't understand.

I enjoyed Bluesman but not as much as his House of Sand and Fog. Bluesman is a story of an eighteen year old boy trying to figure out what he wants from life, he falls in love or should we say lust with a girl his age yet she is just as confused as he is. Growing up a motherless child, this boy/man has only a father and "uncle" to teach him the way and it seems that neither one of them really knows anything other than music, poker and bars, but mostly music!! The character who spoke volumes was his mother who left her journals and thoughts to him and her husband before dying. As alway Andre Dubus III is a wonderful writer, absorbing you into the story and leaving you thinking about the characters long after you have put the book down. I enjoyed the book a lot and would recommend for a quick summer read.

Bluesman by Andre Dubus III

A beautifully written novel by the author of HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG, this coming of age novel takes place during the Vietnam War era of the mid to late 60's. Young Leo Suther is about to turn 18 and is getting ready to find out what life outside of school is all about. He's got a new girl, Allie Donovan, who he's desperately in lust with. Her father, Chick Donovan, soon becomes his mentor and he's offered a job to help Chick build houses. It's Leo's first "real" job, and it makes him feel like a man. With Allie by his side and a great job, life is looking good.

His home life isn't all that bad either. He and his father live side by side, sharing their love of the blues every night and playing music along with their family friend Ryder. Katie Faye, Leo's mother, had died years ago from cancer, and his memories of her have faded, but are being kept alive by his father's love for her. Throughout the novel, references to Katie's life are made, and her story unfolds as Leo learns about a mother who loved poetry and whose biggest desire before she died was to go to Paris. Her story helps shape Leo's future, as the reader soon finds out.

Leo is at a turning point in his life. With only one more year left of high school and a good job with Chick, Leo is ready to leave school and start a family of his own. He fantasizes about living with Allie and their many kids. This fantasy life of his puts blinders on Leo, as he finds out too late how Allie feels about him. And with problems of her own, Allie soon turns her back on Leo, leaving Leo feeling alone and frustrated. As their relationship hits rocky ground, Leo's life starts to fall apart, and he soon sees that not only has Allie's feelings for him have changed, but all around him friends and acquaintances are moving on. Change is in the air, and Leo isn't sure if he's ready for it.

I can't really say enough about BLUESMAN. It's a complex story composed of many layers. Leo's issues with Allie, with her father, and even his mother, are at the root of Leo's story. Political issues of the day are not the main focus, but help add to the story line. Communism, the Vietnam War, the attitudes of the late 60's, are all underlying themes of this book. It's not an easy read but I would definitely recommend this for it's beautiful prose and descriptions throughout the book. It's a great coming of age story, and if nothing else will leave with the reader memories of a time in history that has left a mark on many today.

Dazed and confused in the blues

Leo Sayer the young protagonist in Andre Dubus III's book the Bluesman is a young man coming of age in the time of social upheaval of the Vietnam era. Like many young man of that age his interest is sex, passion and music while trying to discover who he is and who he is going to be. Much to his delight he discovers sex with his girlfriend Allie Donovan. While being tutored by Allie on essential knowledge of the opposite sex, Leo is guided by his three father figures on the meaning of life. Leo's father Jim, introduces him to the world of Blues and acquaints Leo with his diseased mother,through her diaries and poetic writings. Leo's uncle Ryder provides harp lessons and helps Leo to feel the blues. Allies father Chick Donovan gives Leo an opportunity to work for him as a carpenter and teaches him the philosophy of Carl Marx.

Throughout all of his lessons Leo exhibits a sensitivity, but remains dazed and confused as to the direction of his life. During this time Leo is faced with some decisions, which others of this era faced as well as some unexpected choices. Dubus, adeptly holds the readers interest and the reader alternately feels frustrated and sympathetic with Leo.

Dubus is a skilled writer and his lyrical style reinforces the dreaminess of Leo's character. It encapsulates the essence of a youth who is impatient to get on with life along with the insecurity of how to go about it.

Bluesman is recommended reading for those familiar with the Vietnam era and those who would like to know more about it.

I read Dancing After Hours immediately after I read Selected Stories by Andre Dubus. I found Dancing After Hours not as enjoyable. It seemed to meander and was not as concise as "Selected". By being able to compair the two, I probabally gave this book a disservice, because the ability of this man to flat out write is undeniable.

The back blurb makes some pretty hefty comparisons that, while vindicating for those of us who see Dubus as an underappreciated talent in an underappreciated genre, the collection doesn't quite live up to.

Dubus is not a master so much as a master artisan. He's not Michelangelo, he's one of the anonymous apprentices who did most of the brushwork. The stories are paragons of craftwork, written with a wonderful tightness and vividness that never fails to satisfy. The much-anthologized starting piece, "The Intruder," begins asking the questions that permeate most of Dubus's work--questions about the lines between dreams and dreamers, about the bright little worlds people invent for themselves in the face of life's relentlessness.

At the same time, you may find yourself thinking "haven't I read this somewhere else?" Dubus is very skilled at staying inside the lines when he colors, but the effect gives the appearance of variations on Cheever, Anderson, O'Conner and (most prominently) Carver. Where are the risks? Dubus never really dares to wander out on his own limb and so I think the posthumous (post-"In the Bedroom") drumming of his significance might have gotten a little out of hand.

After finishing this collection of stories I am asking myself just how good was it? The hype on the back of the book compares Dubus to Chekhov, Carver, and Flannery O'Connor. It might be that good. As you're reading the stories, most of which are about spiritual crises, or the equivalent, you begin to see the universality in these microcosms of life. The writer and the characters draw you into a quest for meaning and a struggle to reach into the past and change everything you regret. There are a couple of running characters in the stories who give a collection already united by theme the feel of a novel. Some of the best stories are "Blessings", in which a woman tries to sort through her emotions of a fishing trip in which the boat sank. Her family had to fend off shark attacks until they were rescued. It's a great combination of remembrance and violence. Also, "All the Time in the World" in which a woman is desperately trying to find a husband, not just a lover. I could go on for a 1,000 words about the beauty of the prose of each story but I won't. Suffice it to say that when you read these stories you see yourself reflected back through them or, if not personally, through the experience of someone you know. Whether its the questioning of existence, an affair, the senselessness of corporate America, crime, adolescence, love, regret, or physical disability. Every person seems represented here, like some great Walt Whitman poem singing the unity of everything and everyone. There was only one story that I had trouble with and it involved a woman fighting off two thugs who followed her home to rob or rape her. The way the action was described it seemed like the screenplay for some bad japanese karate movie. And sometimes it seemed as though Dubus uses the setting of a story just as background. It doesnt really matter to the telling of the story but he spends paragraphs describing what's going on as the characters walk and talk for example. I understand that he was trying to show the indifference of the outside world to the internal problems of the characters but it got a little old. But these are minor complaints. Overall, it was a great collection, which settles my own question about how good it was.