New Releases by Andre Dubus

One early September night in Florida, a young woman brings her daughter to work. April''s usual babysitter is in the hospital, so she decides it''s best to have her three-year-old daughter close by, watching children''s videos in the office, while she works.

Explosive elements converge one early September night in a Florida men''s club revealing the seamy underside of American life at the moment before the world changed. Reluctantly bringing her daughter to her men''s club office when her babysitter falls ill, stripper April endeavors to keep her child safe while servicing a wealthy foreign client, while a drunken regular angrily retaliates for being thrown out of the club.

Passion and betrayal, violent desperation, ambivalent love that hinges on hatred, and the quest for acceptance by those who stand on the edge of society-these are the hard-hitting themes of a stunningly crafted first collection of stories by the bestselling author of House of Sand and Fog. A vigilant young man working in a halfway house finds himself unable to defend against the rage of one of the inmates in the title story. In "White Trees, Hammer Moon," a man soon to leave home for prison finds himself as unprepared for a family camping trip in the mountains of New Hampshire as he has been for most things in his life. And in the award-winning "Forky," an ex-con is haunted by the punishment he receives just as he is being released into the world. With an incisive ability to inhabit the lives of his characters, Dubus travels deep into the heart of the elusive American dream.

Breece D''J Pancake cut short a promising career when he took his own life at the age twenty-six. Published posthumously, this is a collection of stories that depict the world of Pancake''s native rural West Virginia.

Seven stories of people facing turning points in their lives feature a grief-stricken father, a brother whose mother has just left home, and a woman whose many lovers cause her to doubt she will ever truly know love.

Een Amerikaanse vrouw en een in de VS wonende voormalige kolonel uit het Iraanse leger van de sjah leveren een strijd op leven en dood om een huis.

Kathy verliert das vom Vater geerbte Haus aus eigener Unachtsamkeit und Behördenschlamperei. Der Kampf zwischen ihr und den neuen Besitzern, einer Emigrantenfamilie aus dem Iran, wird zur Überlebensfrage.

The twenty-five luminous and intensely personal essays in this collection are, like Andre Dubus''s celebrated short stories, a testament to the author''s vulnerability, vision, and indestructible faith. Since losing one leg and the use of the other in a 1986 accident, Dubus has experienced despair, learned acceptance, and, finally, found joy in the sacramental magic of even the most quotidian tasks. Whether he is writing of the relationship with his father, the rape of his beloved sister, his Catholic faith, the suicide of a gay naval officer, his admiration for fellow writers like Hemingway and Mailer, or the simple act of making sandwiches for his daughters'' lunchboxes, Dubus cuts straight to the heart of things. Here we have a master at the height of his powers, an artist whose work "is suffused with grace, bathed in a kind of spiritual glow" (The New York Times Book Review).

" A nous, les auteurs de nouvelles, certaines tentations majeures sont épargnées : nous ne faisons pas fortune, ni pour nous, ni pour autrui, et les gens qui font fortune grâce aux écrivains ne s''occupent pas de nous. Nul ne nous offre de grosses avances sur des récits non rédigés. Je n''ai jamais envié un écrivain qui gagne beaucoup d''argent, car la relation de causalité entre l''argent et l''écriture m''effraie. A lui seul, l''acte d''écrire est tout ce que je peux trouver le courage d''affronter chaque matin ; si ma subsistance et les espérances d''un éditeur en dépendaient, je ne pense pas que j''y arriverais." A. D.

A breaved father stalks his son''s killer. A woman cries alone by her television screen. A devout teenager wrestles with his faith and sexuality. Here, in these twenty-three stories, Andre Dubus turns fiction into an act of compassion. For readers new to Dubus, this is the perfect starting point. For fans of his, this is an essential, must-have collection.

Ray a épousé Polly, tout simplement parce qu''il l''aimait. Au point que, lorsque Polly le trompe et le quitte, il part à sa recherche, la retrouve, et dans sa passion vengeresse la viole, un couteau à la main. Est-ce parce que son frère a sauté sur une mine, au Vietnam, que Ray porte en lui une violence qui le transforme peu à peu en un homme en sursis ? Aux voix de Ray et de Polly se joint celle d''Alex, l''autre frère de Ray, pour composer un bouleversant récit d''amour, de violence et de sang où l''écriture d''André Dubus, multiple et bruissante, fascine par sa capacité à saisir toutes les facettes et les nuances d''un drame ordinaire.

On retrouve ici, chez cet auteur, des personnages présents et "vrais", saisis dans la vivacité de leurs dialogues, surpris dans les moments les plus secrets de leur pensée et de leur conduite.

Four Sad Tales consists of four individual, small hand-made books, each with a single short-short story by a different writer, & each bound in different, fine print materials. These books constitute BBP''s ''Brief Book'' series. LESLIE IN CALIFORNIA, typeset, printed & bound by hand, is a short-short story by Andre Dubus: The wages of violence in marriage. Signed & numbered. Limited to 300 copies. Paper: $9.00. FINAL GRACE, made entirely by hand - typesetting, printing & binding, is a short-short story by Roger Armbrust: How the last people on earth face their fate. Signed & numbered. 250 limited edition copies. Paper: $9.00 HAPPILY EVER AFTER, a handcrafted edition, is a short-short story by Tom Tolnay: The ironies of aging. Original art printed in maroon. Limited to 300, numbered & signed by author & artist Alfred P. Ingegno, Jr. Paper: $9.00. WINDOW, a hand-made book, is a short-short story by William Oppenheimer: The poignant indelibility of lost love. Limited to 250. Signed & numbered. Paper: $9.00.