Andre Dubus

Twenty-three unforgettable short stories from one of America’s most celebrated literary masters.
John Updike once said of his friend and fellow writer Andre Dubus: “[He] is a shrewd student of people who come to accept pain as a fair price for pleasure, and to view right and wrong as a matter of degree.” Dubus’s characters are depicted in all their imperfection, but with the author’s requisite tenderness...

After a bad fall, Tom, in constant pain and addicted to painkillers at the cost of his relationships with his wife and son, realizes he can never work again and ends up in subsidized housing, where he hatches a scheme to commit convenience-check fraud with neighbors he considers lowlifes. Tom Lowe's identity and his pride are invested in the work he does with his back and his hands. He designed and built his family's dream home, working extra hours...

"Daniel Ahearn lives a quiet, solitary existence in a seaside New England town. Forty years ago, following a shocking act of impulsive violence on his part, his daughter, Susan, was ripped from his arms by police. Now in her forties, Susan still suffers from the trauma of a night she doesn't remember, as she struggles to feel settled, to love a man and create something that lasts. Lois, her maternal grandmother who raised her, tries to find peace...