Understanding Andre Dubus , livre ebook

UNDERSTANDING ANDRE DUBUS
UNDERSTANDING CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LITERATURE
Matthew J. Bruccoli, Founding Editor
Linda Wagner-Martin, Series Editor
UNDERSTANDING
ANDRE DUBUS
Olivia Carr Edenfield

The University of South Carolina Press
2017 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Edenfield, Olivia Carr, author.
Title: Understanding Andre Dubus / Olivia Carr Edenfield.
Description: Columbia : The University of South Carolina Press, 2017. | Series: Understanding contemporary American literature | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016054276 (print) | LCCN 2016054336 (ebook) ISBN 9781611177404 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781611177411 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Dubus, Andre, 1959- -Criticism and interpretation.
Classification: LCC PS3554.U2652 Z59 2017 (print) | LCC PS3554.U2652 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54 [B] -dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016054276
Front cover photograph Mark Ostow.
http://www.ostow.com
For my parents, Paul and Rose Watkins Carr, and my husband, Daniel Edenfield, with love
I am fixed in transition, static, pulled one way by my youth, and the other way by what I have learned since then.
Andre Dubus, Of Robin Hood and Womanhood, Broken Vessels
Sacraments are myriad.
Andre Dubus, Sacraments, Meditations from a Moveable Chair
CONTENTS
Series Editor s Preface
Acknowledgments
Chronology
Chapter 1
Understanding Andre Dubus
Chapter 2
Boyhood and Military Life
Chapter 3
Women and Domestic Space
Chapter 4
Fatherhood, Marriage, and Dancing After Hours
Chapter 5
The Essays
Notes
Bibliography
Index
SERIES EDITOR S PREFACE
The Understanding Contemporary American Literature series was founded by the estimable Matthew J. Bruccoli (1931-2008), who envisioned these volumes as guides or companions for students as well as good nonacademic readers, a legacy that will continue as new volumes are developed to fill in gaps among the nearly one hundred series volumes published to date and to embrace a host of new writers only now making their marks on our literature.
As Professor Bruccoli explained in his preface to the volumes he edited, because much influential contemporary literature makes special demands, the word understanding in the titles was chosen deliberately. Many willing readers lack an adequate understanding of how contemporary literature works; that is, of what the author is attempting to express and the means by which it is conveyed. Aimed at fostering this understanding of good literature and good writers, the criticism and analysis in the series provide instruction in how to read certain contemporary writers-explicating their material, language, structures, themes, and perspectives-and facilitate a more profitable experience of the works under discussion.
In the twenty-first century Professor Bruccoli s prescience gives us an avenue to publish expert critiques of significant contemporary American writing. The series continues to map the literary landscape and to provide both instruction and enjoyment. Future volumes will seek to introduce new voices alongside canonized favorites, to chronicle the changing literature of our times, and to remain, as Professor Bruccoli conceived, contemporary in the best sense of the word.
Linda Wagner-Martin, Series Editor
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I read my first short story by Andre Dubus when I was a graduate student at the University of Iowa in the mid-1980s. I had heard about his fiction from my husband, Daniel, who was a member of the undergraduate Writer s Workshop, where Dubus is revered. When I finished Leslie in California, I knew I had received a gift. I had no idea just how blessed I would become.
In 1992 I called Dubus s publishing house, David R. Godine, in Boston, seeking an interview with the writer, which he granted me in February of that year. When we met, The Colonel s Wife had just appeared in print, his first story written in full since his accident in 1986. Over the weekend, we talked through Selected Stories , and what I remember now more than what he said was the way he made me feel, that my time was important, my work of consequence, though I had little idea what I might do with our hours of conversation. I spent the summer transcribing the interview, then put it in a drawer.
A few years later, I began work on my Ph.D. at the University of Georgia, where I wrote my dissertation on Dubus s short fiction. James Nagel, my mentor to this day, directed my project, and I am grateful for his consistently sound guidance and friendship. I supplemented the reviews and scant criticism with my interview and conversations the writer had had with others, such as Thomas E. Kennedy, the first to write a book-length study of Dubus s fiction and the most prolific of the scholars devoted to his work. Kennedy s essays, along with those by Patrick Samway, S.J., remain the best of the criticism, and both critics continue to influence my reading. I am indebted to their keen insights.
In 2007 I put together a panel honoring Dubus s work for the American Literature Association s annual conference in Boston. Donald Anderson suggested that I contact Andre III- the nicest man you will ever meet, he said. I am grateful to Donald for his recommendation; it changed my life. And he was right about Andre. He took time away from his very busy schedule to sit on that panel and then to serve as keynote speaker in the fall of 2008 for the American Literature Association Symposium on Fiction, which I directed in Savannah, Georgia. At that symposium, my friends Kirk Curnutt and Alfred Bendixen encouraged me to ask Andre III about writing his father s biography. Andre III and his sister Suzanne Dubus share the responsibilities of their father s literary estate, and thankfully the two said yes to my request. That led to a book of interviews and now to this project, with the biography to follow.
I am grateful to the Dubus family, each one of them, for their patience and support and friendship. Andre III; his wife, Fontaine; Suzanne; and Jeb are tender mercies. Their generosity is unlimited; their willingness to bring me into their lives and trust me with their father s legacy is sometimes simply overwhelming. Each of Andre s six children was cut from the same cloth: they are artistic, spiritually and physically beautiful, generous, and pure of heart. Pat Dubus remains as lovely as she was the day Andre married her, with a soul open and responsive to the joys of life. She is as good a woman as I could ever hope to be, and I am grateful for her friendship and constant encouragement. Andre s third wife, Peggy Rambach, is equally kind, generous, and supportive, and we have spent many happy hours together discussing her years with Andre. I have had the blessing, too, of spending time with my dear friend Kathryn, Andre s oldest sister. I will cherish those October days we spent driving the roads of the Louisiana bayou as she talked about her life as a Dubus, her love for her brother, his art. The connections she made for me are priceless. I spent time in New York with Philip Spitzer and witnessed firsthand his love for Andre, his dear friend and brother. David Godine, that wise man, met me in Boston to talk about his decision to publish Dubus s work, their respect for each other, and Andre s loyalty. People are known by the company they keep; having met Andre s company, I know that he was a blessed man. There are too many to name here, but no people could be finer than the family and friends of Andre Dubus.
I remain appreciative of Alfred Bendixen, executive director of the American Literature Association, for his friendship and his unwavering belief in my work. I thank my sisters, Elizabeth Carr Edwards and Paula Carr Cain, and my sister-in-law, Becki Edenfield, who have helped in countless ways. Richard and Dorothy Mugavero and Bob Peters watch over me like family when I am in Newburyport; their open hearts make me feel at home. I am grateful, too, for the support of Georgia Southern University and the Department of Literature and Philosophy for financial resources and the time to work on various projects related to Dubus. Thank you to Walter Biggins, formerly of the Conversations series at University Press of Mississippi, for allowing me the privilege of editing their collection of Andre s interviews. I am especially grateful to Linda Wagner-Martin, editor of this series, for her patience and guidance during this project. My mother passed away in 2014, and I will never forget Linda s kindness and support as I struggled with my grief to meet this deadline.
I am blessed to have had such supportive parents, Rose and Paul Carr, whose sensitive hearts were full and loving. I remain in all things most grateful to my dear family, my husband, Daniel, and our children, Cohen and Rose, who have patiently supported my every effort. Each day with them is precious, as Andre s work confirms. I trust I am better for his gifts.
CHRONOLOGY
1936 Born on August 11 to Andre Jules (November 16, 1904) and Katherine (Burke) Dubus, (January 2, 1903) in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Welcomed by two older sisters, Kathryn Claire (November 3, 1930) and Elizabeth Nell (October 26, 1933).
1944 Enters the Christian Brothers School, Lafayette, Louisiana.
1954 Graduates from the Christian Brothers High School.
1958 Earns B.A. in English and journalism from McNeese State College, Lake Charles, Louisiana.