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Selected Stories

4.31 of 5 stars 4.31 · rating details · 1,402 ratings · 88 reviews

These twenty-three stories represent the best work of one of the finest and most emotionally revealing writers in America. Andre Dubus treats his characters--a bereaved father stalking his son's killer; a woman crying alone by her television late at night; a devout teenager writing in the coils of faith and sexuality; a father's story of limitless love for his daughter--wi...more

Paperback, 496 pages

Published December 4th 1995 by Vintage (first published 1988)

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Oct 09, 2011 Veronica rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Andre Dubus is my favorite American short story writer. In fact, he is one of my few favorite American writers period. He has the realism of Cheever and Carver, but more warmth than Carver and Hemingway. His prose is understated and never unnecessary; he is one of the few writers I have read where every word in every sentence, and every sentence is not only necessary, but meaningful as well (Tom Robbins and Virginia Woolf are others). He is worth reading for his prose alone.

Many, if not most, o...more

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Nov 16, 2011 Patrick Faller rated it 4 of 5 stars

A truly regional writer, Dubus manages an expansiveness that comes out of an almost intimate understanding of his character's inner lives. He provides us with an example of a writer who makes what might have been unnecessary backstory relevant to the events of his narratives, as the psychological groundwork shaping his characters' attitudes and motivations. While at times Dubus seems to espouse a narrow view of gender relationships and can become at times a little reductive when writing about wo...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars

The truly remarkable thing about this collection is the number of times I had to stop and reassess characters, examining their actions in relation to their thoughts and emotions. Many have said that Dubus writes all his characters with great sympathy, but I think what he does is even more striking: he writes them the way they wish they could write themselves. That's the way I can feel great pain for a man's childhood loss of his Marine brother, even after he has raped his ex-wife and set fire to...more

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Jul 09, 2009 Wightknyte11 rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's amazing to go from story to story in this collection and see the diverse kinds of characters Dubus is able to work with and still be able to be completely in their heads. The stalker ex-husband and the stalked ex-wife in "The Pretty Girl" are both as rich as each other and just as compelling (frighteningly so in the case of the ex-husband). Dubus works with an incredible amount of detail as well. By the end of a story I feel like I know everything I'd ever want to about that character's lif...more

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Oct 27, 2007 Shaindel is currently reading it

Only two stories in so far (short stories are my solace when grading papers, so I grade a certain number then read a story, and so on). I might sell my soul to be able to write like this. Wow.

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Aug 03, 2007 Leah rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is simply my most favorite short story collection ("A Father's Story" - read it) by one of my favorite authors.

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Dec 13, 2010 Derek rated it 4 of 5 stars

The stories collected here are weird.

Not weird in any predictable, clichéd sense, either. It's just that Dubus seems to be working with different material than so many other short story writers (Alice Munro seems like a notable exception, but their voices aren't exactly redundant of one another, either). Much of the work appearing in Selected Stories sounds more like a novel than a short story; the patience that Dubus exhibits (and ultimately asks of his readers, too) is extraordinary. He's usin...more The stories collected here are weird.

Not weird in any predictable, clichéd sense, either. It's just that Dubus seems to be working with different material than so many other short story writers (Alice Munro seems like a notable exception, but their voices aren't exactly redundant of one another, either). Much of the work appearing in Selected Stories sounds more like a novel than a short story; the patience that Dubus exhibits (and ultimately asks of his readers, too) is extraordinary. He's using oils when others are working in watercolors or sketching with nubby pencils. The stories take their time to get where they're going, and the end result is some pretty amazing and impactful narratives, ones that stick with you long after you've shut the book for the night or moved on to the next. And for all their literary-ness (whatever the hell that might mean), these stories aren't afraid to take risks and tackle big topics, either: murder, adultery, manslaughter, alcoholism, religion, the works. Some of these stories, in less able hands, might come off as exaggerated and sophomoric. But not in Dubus'.

Catholocism takes a big place here--imagine, perhaps, if Flannery O'Connor were writing from the perspective of New England instead of the American south--and as such, the stories have a gravity of guilt carried by many of the protagonists. But such guilt doesn't prohibit them from making the types of interesting mistakes that people love to read about, and so their despair seems hard-won and real.

If there's any complaint to be made against a pretty unassailable collection, it's that Dubus seems just a little too content to sit inside his own voice for protracted lengths of time; pages can pass before the present action of the story moves, or even begins, for that matter. It's a hard complaint to make, of course, because this is the same quality that makes Dubus' stories so compelling in the first place, but part of me is left wondering what detrimental effect excising a good 40 percent of some of these stories might have. With that said, it's still a wonderful collection well worth the time of any reader who is patient enough to not expect a ton of movement with every paragraph.

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May 27, 2013 Daniel rated it 2 of 5 stars

Dubus is often called a "writer's writer," which in general seems a dubious compliment. Are writers truly capable of identifying subtleties in a colleague's work that the average reader can't? When a writer is granted this appellation, I think it's more likely his work is viewed as stylish but slow-paced, elliptical, the equivalent of an art house film or avant-garde play. A select few--the cultured--will enjoy it; the rest of us stumble through wishing we were reading John Grisham. This is part...more Dubus is often called a "writer's writer," which in general seems a dubious compliment. Are writers truly capable of identifying subtleties in a colleague's work that the average reader can't? When a writer is granted this appellation, I think it's more likely his work is viewed as stylish but slow-paced, elliptical, the equivalent of an art house film or avant-garde play. A select few--the cultured--will enjoy it; the rest of us stumble through wishing we were reading John Grisham. This is particularly true of Dubus's stories. Let me admit I'm biased by having read Dubus's son's memoir "Townie," in which Andre Dubus III paints an ambivalent portrait of his father. "Townie" is in some ways the polar opposite of Dubus's "Selected Stories." Where the stories are meandering and contemplative, "Townie" is tightly focused, compulsively readable. But maybe the larger issue here is the treatment of the subject matter. Both books address divorce, for instance, but come at it from different angles. Dubus's son, in "Townie," suffers the collateral damage of his parents' divorce. His evocation of this time, when he and his siblings were thrust into a hardscrabble life, is visceral and moving. But the senior Dubus, though returning to the themes of divorce and infidelity repeatedly, approaches them as though from a great distance. There is no immediacy, nothing at stake. His characters are almost exclusively working class--soldiers, waitresses, stable owners--yet their thoughts emerge on the page as poetical abstract philosophical inquiries. I'm not saying working class people can't think deeply; it's that these reveries intrude on the narrative momentum of the stories. It's as though Dubus feared his story wasn't "literary" enough, so he thought he better incorporate a flowery interlude to wow the critics. But it's the old adage of "show don't tell." Dubus does too much telling, not enough showing, and it's what separates him from better writers like Raymond Carver and Richard Ford, who explored the same alienated working class people in their stories. Dubus's stories drag on too long; he doesn't seem confident about where to begin or end. And he can't seem to escape his preoccupations: divorce and infidelity, as mentioned, but also Catholicism and Marine culture. The facts of Dubus's life, the failed relationships, he tries to transpose into art but without any of the attendant emotion. One almost gets the sense none of it caused him undue grief. The essays in "Broken Vessels," written after the accident that confined him to a wheelchair, seem more plainspoken, closer to the truth. The stories are okay, but I would recommend reading the essays instead, then read "Townie." (less)

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Mar 13, 2012 Moira Russell added it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook, on-the-kindle, 2012-50-new-books-challenge

Probably the last time I read this book straight through was sometime early in the last decade; I bought his kid's memoir on Kindle, and then saw the Selected Stories on sale and snapped them up. The best of Dubus on my ereader: how could I resist?

"Rose" remains as much of a heartstopper as when I first read it, in....God could it have been 1987? 1986? I think so, my copy of The Last Worthless Evening dates to then. My dad read me "A Father's Story" at around the same time, an amazing experience...more Probably the last time I read this book straight through was sometime early in the last decade; I bought his kid's memoir on Kindle, and then saw the Selected Stories on sale and snapped them up. The best of Dubus on my ereader: how could I resist?

"Rose" remains as much of a heartstopper as when I first read it, in....God could it have been 1987? 1986? I think so, my copy of The Last Worthless Evening dates to then. My dad read me "A Father's Story" at around the same time, an amazing experience for both of us (my dad would read me stories by Flannery O'Connor, Ring Lardner, Eudora Welty, and then we'd talk about them....). I am still amazed "Molly" is not in his Selected, it's probably my favourite story he ever wrote. And Dubus's portrayal of women remains amazing in stories like "The Fat Girl," "The Pretty Girl," "Voices from the Moon," and even slight efforts like "Leslie in California" and "They Now Live in Texas." Dubus's natural length was obviously the novella; his sentences are long and elegant, circling around an idea or theme before beginning to develop it. And yet his characters work at places like Sunnycorner and Timmy's bar, drink Miller and Bud, go fishing and shooting. A surprising number of them are soldiers; Dubus served six years in the Marines, and there's that constant sense of being shoved up against and forced to understand people radically different from you which comes from institutionalism. His son would later experience the same kind of thing, and write about it too, working with addicts and prisoners. Dubus doesn't so much plot his stories as send his characters into dire situations to record the results: a wife is raped by her husband, a father tries to avenge his son's killing, a daughter grows up with her permissive mother and absent father, a boy's father marries his older brother's ex-wife. What you remember are the extraordinary people, with their ordinary, usually diminutive names: Rose, Polly, Anna, Molly, Richie, Wayne, Steve.

....And yet, after reading Townie, his son's wrenching, disturbing memoir, it's a little hard to see Dubus as the voice of the working class he was once held up as (I had the same difficulty with Raymond Carver after reading his biography). It's like Dagoberto Gilb saying Carver's characters weren't like the actual construction workers he knew who snorted heroin and got into fights. Once you hear it, you can't quite tune out the false note, the tone of middle-class romanticization of addiction and poverty. What saves Dubus more than Carver are his amazingly vivid characters, and keen, emotionally tinged observation: he can turn a young girl opening a pack of cigarettes into a life-defining moment. (Moral: It is probably never a good idea to learn too much about your favourite writers.)(less)

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May 01, 2013 Ryan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-twice

Reading this through a second time (the first time was many years ago), I definitely didn't feel the same rapture as the first time. In fact, I found many of the stories to be tedious and repetitious (we get it, you live in a small, working-class New England town, people cheat on each other and drink a lot). It could have been because reading this while in school really dragged it out longer than it should have, and I always get impatient with books if it takes me too long to read them. Some of...more

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Dec 20, 2012 Jason Hillenburg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Going cold into this without any knowledge about Dubus, I didn't have any idea about what I could expect. My risk was well rewarded. This is an exemplary collection full of clean, honest prose that rarely takes shortcuts to achieve emotional effects. My only quibble is that some of the stories lack dramatic action and rely too much on exposition at the expense of depicting character. As a result, the collection could have been trimmed some.

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Mar 16, 2009 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

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Oct 23, 2011 Brad rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, fiction, stories

Magnificent. Dubus writes about burdens. Something terrible happens, and you have to get up the next day and live the rest of your life. To quote Hemingway, "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places." I have a hard time writing more about them, I can't do them any justice. I will say that for the first time in my life I understand catholicism, so there's something.

Reading this book after his son's book "Townie" has probably been the single best reading experi...more

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Jan 06, 2009 Brendan rated it 5 of 5 stars

masterful short stories. sometimes his stories seem sort of dated, and I occasionally wonder if he isn't sort of being unfair to his women characters. but regardless, his stories are incredible pieces of art.

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Jul 21, 2010 Lance rated it 5 of 5 stars

Some of the most lucid and simply beautiful prose I've ever had the pleasure to read. What a compassionate soul Dubus had, and what a shame it was to lose this amazing short story writer and person.

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Sep 25, 2010 Serene rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I didn't read all the stories. The ones I did were okay, though some were better than others. "The Pretty Girl" was my favorite - though not a "pleasant" story by any means.

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Jun 22, 2008 Ellen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Ellen by: Bradin Farnworth

Shelves: catholicism

I was surprised how quickly I flew through these stories. After each one ended, I immediately wanted to start reading the next. I found his sentences to be plain, a bit boring at times, but that almost didn't matter, because there was some kind of inexplicable tenderness in each one. Many of the characters are Catholics grappling with guilt, sexuality, suffering, divorce, etc. in the context of the faith. Walker Percy once said, when asked what his latest book was about, that it was "about the s...more

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Apr 02, 2009 Jenni Pertuset marked it as to-read

Shelves: fiction

why: Jim Tomlinson's odd shelf post

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Nov 13, 2012 Deb Holden rated it 4 of 5 stars

Not all the stories are great but most are very good. If you like good writing with quirky or slightly bazaar plots, this is a book to try.

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Feb 13, 2013 Ben Z. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Dubus is one of the greatest American short story writers, despite never gaining the notoriety or success of contemporaries like Chandler, Cheever or Updike--all of whom where heavily influenced by his work and style. Dubus is often referred to as "The American Che
khov".

The stories are largely tragic and the characters are ugly. The writing is unpretentious and the stories are perfectly constructed. Some of the works ("The Townies", "The Pretty Girl", "The Curse") will stick in your head well a...more

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May 24, 2010 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Dubus was a writer's writer. What a treat to read these stories again after 20 years! Such craftsmanship is awe-inspiring.

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Jan 21, 2008 Eugenie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: manly men, strong women

To read this book is to share an often uncomfortable intimacy with ordinary characters either bearing or inflicting great pain. Dubus's small world is so familiar, so sparse and so simple, but here are also the vast, irreconcilable differences between men and women, rich and poor, strong and weak. The deepest exploration of the Catholic perspective on life that I've ever read in fiction, a facet I enjoyed more than I ever would have guessed. Dubus is not afraid of melodrama and goes over the top...more

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Jan 17, 2009 Jane is currently reading it

Prose that makes me stop to catch my breath. These are the kinds of stories I love to come back to.

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Mar 21, 2011 Katie Everett-morehouse rated it 5 of 5 stars

clearly a man who pours over every word in his sensitive, perceptive stories. original and very talented.

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Aug 22, 2009 Steph rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction

I always think of him as a quiet, soulful storyteller. The themes that always come up for me when I read him are those of religion and family: devotion, loyalty, kept secrets, loss. His female narrators are as authentic as his male.

A nice book to pick and choose from.

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Jun 24, 2012 Joanne rated it 5 of 5 stars

The characters are always doing the wrong thing but in the most sincere authentic way possible.

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Oct 16, 2011 Kevin rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed it, but it took awhile for me to finish it because his writing is so dense.

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Jun 23, 2012 Jess rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Andre Dubus is a master of short form. This collection displays his undeniable talent.

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Mar 16, 2013 Diana rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: didn-t-finish

Meh. Read two stories.They didn't really move me. Think I'm done with this.

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Jun 10, 2012 Susan rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read his son's memoir and it led me to his stories. Well done.

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About Andre Dubus

Award-winning author Andre Dubus II (1936–1999) has been hailed as one of the best American short story writers of the twentieth century. Dubus’s collections of short fiction include Separate Flights (1975), Adultery & Other Choices (1977), and Dancing After Hours (1996), which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Another collection, Finding a Girl in America, features the story...more

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