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On Killers and Kin
From the literary master and best-selling author of Townie, reflections on a life of challenges, contradictions, and fulfillments.
During childhood summers in Louisiana, Andre Dubus III's grandfather taught him that men's work is hard. As an adult, whether tracking down a drug lord in Mexico as a bounty hunter or grappling with privilege while living with a rich girlfriend in New York City, Dubus worked―at being a better worker and a better human being.
In Ghost Dogs, Dubus's nonfiction prowess is on full display in his retelling of his own successes, failures, triumphs, and pain. In his longest essay, "If I Owned a Gun," Dubus reflects on the empowerment and shame he felt in keeping a gun, and his decision, ultimately, to give it up. Elsewhere, he writes of a violent youth and of settled domesticity and fatherhood, about the omnipresent expectations and contradictions of masculinity, about the things writers remember and those they forget. Drawing upon kindred literary spirits from Rilke to Rumi to Tim O'Brien, Ghost Dogs renders moments of personal revelation with emotional generosity and stylistic grace, ultimately standing as essential witness and testimony to the art of the essay.
"Dubus' sentences glide on a level pitch before seamlessly dovetailing into the poetically poignant. Within Dubus' vast heart lies a pugilist intent on defeating his own demons." ―Booklist (starred review)
"As a whole, the essays plumb great emotional depths. Strictly speaking, Andre Dubus III's estimable gift for words may not be in his DNA, but as this book reveals, it's at the core of who he is as a human being." ―BookPage
"Dubus's sinewy prose strengthens his probing meditations on the inextricable relationship between love and loss. Readers will be moved." ―Publishers Weekly
"Despite the hardships of his early years and the draw of violence, Dubus describes a life filled with love. That emotional capacity is his real triumph." ―California Review of Books
"Andre Dubus III is a literary treasure. These tender, elegant essays come to us directly from his battered heart, his noble soul, his powerful reckoning with the legacy of his childhood. To read this book is to touch the pulsing core of what it is to be human." ―Dani Shapiro, author of Signal Fires
"Andre Dubus III's idea of an essay is tantalizingly simple: tell something important that happened to him―suddenly having big money and not knowing quite how to cope with that, loving his long-divorced parents, growing up poor and outlasting it, not loving his dog as much as he worries he should. Here is human life often cloaked in transporting mystery. Dubus possesses a rare and empathetic brilliance." ―Richard Ford, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Independence Day
This information about Ghost Dogs was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Marion Ettlinger
Before finding his calling as a writer, Andre Dubus III (b. Oceanside,
California) worked for brief stints
as a bounty hunter, private investigator, carpenter, bartender, actor, and
teacher. His first book, The Cage Keeper and Other Stories, was published
in 1989, followed in 1993 by his first novel, Bluesman.
For the next few
years, he taught and did odd jobs as a carpenter while working on House of
Sand and Fog (a National Book Award finalist in 1999 and 2003 movie). Much of the book was written in his car, which he often parked
at a local cemetery in search of quiet and solitude. His characters were
inspired by two people whose predicaments had stuck in his mind for years: a
woman he read about in the newspaper who was wrongly evicted from her house and
forced to live in ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Andre Dubus III's Website
Name Pronunciation
Andre Dubus III: ahn-dray duh-BYOOSE (last syllable rhymes with use)
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