Selected Stories. (Signed/presentation)

Dubus, Andre.

ISBN 10: 0879237368 / ISBN 13: 9780879237363

Published by Boston. David R. Godine. 1975., 1988

First Edition (Stated) with "First Published in 1988" and Stated "First Edition" on the copyright page. Signed/Presentation: "For Geralyn from your mother and with my good wishes--Andre Dubus/ Christmas 1988." And signed again on the title page: "Andre Dubus" Handsomely. bound in light green woven cloth; spine stamped brightly in black; and beige paper-covered boards. Clean, tight, with a little foxing to the top of the fore-edge. In a near-fine complete pictorial dust jacket featuring Hopper's "Morning Sun" with $22.50 on the inside front flap. A very attractive Godine production, signed twice by Dubus. First Edition (Stated) with "First Published in 1988" and Stated "First Edition" on the copyright page. Seller Inventory # 4097

Synopsis:

The critically acclaimed author presents a collection of twenty-two tales peopled with decidedly unglamorous characters living north of Boston who everyday fight the small struggles of their lives

Reviews: Dubus, known as one of our most accomplished storytellers, has in his own life recently experienced some of the terrible things that customarily happen in his fiction (last year a car accident cost him a leg). In this fine collection of 23 stories, an iron-pumping hothead terrorizes and rapes his ex-wife; ("The Pretty Girl"); a sadistic Marine sergeant destroys a green recruit; ("Cadence"); a drunken youth kicks his girlfriend to death and leaves her body in the snow. ("Townies"). "New Hampshire is also a redneck state," observes one character. Yet the disorderly lives of these small-town or suburban denizens are rendered in a calm, richly textured, minutely detailed style. Dubus gets under the skin of a 19-year-old baseball pitcher whose wife ditches him for her dentist, a waitress emotionally scarred by her husband's death in Korea, an obese woman who rationalizes her secret gorging on sweets, a divorcing disc jockey coming to terms with his misogyny. Many of these tales are set in his favorite fictional territory northwest of Boston, yet an equal number span the map from Virginia to Texas to California. With unflinching candor Dubus explores the uneasy accommodations of marriage and adultery, the self-deceptions of middle age and the terrors of childhood.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

What John Cheever did for upper-middle-class suburbs the equally talented Dubus does for the blue-collar manufacturing towns of Massachusetts. The most compelling of these finely crafted stories depicts the inhabitants of fading communities struggling to maintain stability as factories close and customary ways disappear. They don't often succeed. "Townies" juxtaposes the ideal of a posh women's college with harsh local realities. A young couple in "Anna" robs a drugstore to achieve a pathetic parody of material success. Characters commit violence for love or revenge without hope of redemption. Often graphic, never unbelievable, the tales are dense with the dark side of the American dream. Recommended. See below for review of a work by Dubus's son. Ed. Starr E. Smith, Georgetown Univ. Lib., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Selected Stories. (Signed/presentation)
Publisher: Boston. David R. Godine. 1975.
Publication Date: 1988
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
Signed: Signed by Author
Edition: 1st Edition.