fwriction

From Michael Nye, managing editor of The Missouri Review, comes a strong look at the writing of Andre Dubus, a writer who I hold near and dear to my heart.

Asking me to pick his or her favorite writer is like giving a starving man a menu.  Dubus died several years ago, so I’ll never have the opportunity to shake his hand and tell him how much his work has meant to me, just like I’ll never be able to say a proper thanks to Scott Fitzgerald or Grace Paley.  I didn’t know Andre Dubus, and pretending I do because I’ve read his work is ridiculous.  Still.  He wrote the kind of stories that all writers, regardless of your style or taste, should read and experience and appreciate, stories that feel intimate and true and make you feel you know the writer, you know the characters, and know them in a way perhaps better than they know themselves.  Dubus is one of our best writers, and the complexity and intimacy in his work can be experienced anew each time I reread him.  If you have read Dubus before, I urge you to make time for his work again; if you haven’t, seek out his stories and read them for the first time.  I promise, on a cold autumn night, there isn’t anything better to read.