The Cross Country Runner

by Andre Dubus, Tobias Wolff (Introduction), Joshua Bodwell (Editor)

Spirituality, sex, violence, guilt, and morality in stories that are filled with a generosity and tenderness that distinguishes the masterful short fiction writer, Andre Dubus.

This third volume in the Collected Short Stories and Novellas by Andre Dubus includes the four novellas and two stories collected in The Last Worthless Evening , the novella, Voices from the Moon , plus previously uncollected stories―all with an introduction by Tobias Wolff.

“It’s divorce that did it,” his father had said last night. So begins Voices from the Moon , the 126-page novella that takes place over the course of a single day and alternates between the viewpoints of Richie Stowe, a serious twelve-year-old who plans to become a priest, and the five other members of his family.

The stories from The Last Worthless Evening range further than in any previous Dubus racial tension in the Navy; a detective story homage; a Hispanic shortstop; the unlikely pairing of an eleven-year-old kid and a dangerous Vietnam vet.

Finally, this volume includes previously uncollected stories, including work from the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. The earliest story appearing here is “The Cross Country Runner”―first published in the Midwestern University Quarterly in 1966 when Dubus was 30 years old. The final story―the western-themed “Sisters”―is the last piece of fiction Dubus was working on when he died suddenly in 1999 at the age of 63.

Collected Short Stories and Novellas by Andre Dubus includes We Don’t Live Here Anymore , The Winter Father , and The Cross Country Runner . All three contain work by an American master, perfect for anyone who loves stories of the human heart and where it can lead us.

Genres: Short Stories, American

400 pages, Paperback

Published October 18, 2018

About the author

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 “Killings,” which was adapted into the critically acclaimed film In the Bedroom (2001), starring Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei. His son Andre Dubus III is also a writer.

Reviews

[Tim O'Leary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seven months ago in the midst of an arctic storm, the worst of the winter, it was my privilege to read "House of Sand and Fog," by Andre Dubus III. One of five children (born on 9/11 in 1959) it was customary in the fifties to give a first-born son the father's name. Thinking back, there were Big Jims and Jimmies, Toms and Tommies, Roberts and Robbies, scattered all through my neighborhood. I should've been a Sammy, but being a twin, with already enough attendant confusion, was not. Andre Dubus II, who was a native son of Louisiana Cajun stock (gumbo?) from a large, Irish Catholic working-class family, had been a Marine in peacetime, was schooled to become a teacher of creative writing and an author at the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. Graduating with an M.F.A. in 1965, he moved to the East Coast and lived out his entire life at Havermill, a blue-collar mill town in Massachusettes and where, soon after, he fashioned a novel called "The Lieutenant." It was his first, and the only one he'd ever write. The next seven years met without published success, receiving rejection letters for his short stories, his forte, critics calling his expertise for longer versions repleat with complexity and depth "compressed novels," rather than short stories. Or novellas. Eventually he found a publisher for his collections--this being the third in a three-volume set which opens with the novella "Voices from the Moon." The closest thing to a novel, being some 120 odd pages. Odd being the preferred reference. My own regard for the story was tempered, largely, by misgivings for its characters. A dysfunctional family that doubles as a love triangle, and multiple households of ex-spouses, their sons and daughters and broken lives in various stages of chaos if not repair. A father and son who are shamefully (or rather not enough) intimately involved with the son's wife who in her lustful youth brings men home that she picks up at bars from neighboring towns with her husband; a cuckholding arrangement whereby he pretends to be too drunk retiring to their marital bedroom early leaving her and the random stranger to have a one-time affair (never the same prospect twice) on the living room couch. Then, after he leaves, she relates the lurid details vividly to her husband, who has been listening and aroused all the while, with the desired result of their impassioned follow-up. Tiring of these promiscuous games, and their perverse secrecy after a year, he has a change of heart, the couple inevitably become divorced, and a jealous rivalry ensues (did I mention shameful?) since the father has fallen in love with his son's wife (he's been a long-time divorced, lonely, yadda, yadda, yadda) and her desire to marry him is--since her passion now remains repressed--reciprocal. There it is. Not a novel. Nor a memorable one by a long shot. But the closest Dubus II would come to writing one. A mimic, of sorts, of Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" written in a narrative of perspectives from the voice of each family member. So onto the short stories: Written well-enough, passing muster for a certain style, they are regrettably inconsistent in their tenor, overly-sentimental mostly, and suffer from shallow and thinly developed plots. It is said the fruit falls not so far from the tree. But where the father and son of the same name is concerned, the "third" turned out to be the better writer than the "second." There was a fair amount of time invested being 465 pages in length. But for my short stories, few can compare with the likes of Updike. Or Hemingway--which, incidentally, the older and fully-bearded Dubus bares a striking resemblance. Wish from a literary standpoint the likeness would've been all the moreso. How odd it is, though, that there are only a few dozen reviews here. For a book published in 2018. (?) He's a much better writer than that.

[Ailish Dougherty · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like Dubus Jr.’s work (his favorite book of mine is from a female perspective), but both father and son always give me “she breasted boobily to the stairs and titted downwards” vibes. This story especially (admittedly I only read title story) was so sexist and tiring to read. I hated it, especially as a teacher, knowing how many teachers have the same viewpoint as Ritchey does about their students. Gross

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

As usual, I was moved by Dubus's writing. I particularly enjoyed these later stories, and their deeper dives into the perspectives of women and even a few people of color. There's not much more I can say about Dubus, other than that I never come away from one of his stories without deep feeling.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like clockwork, the stories go from terrible to glorious and you just have to keep going on. Good Read.