He also received Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships, and nominations for a National Book Critics' Circle Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. He was awarded the PEN/Malamud, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Jean Stein Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His other works include Adultery and Other Choices, The Times Are Never So Bad, Dancing After Hours, and Broken Vessels ( bibliography). After several years of physical therapy, he was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, an experience he wrote about in the collection of essays, Meditations from a Moveable Chair. Dubus's left leg was amputated above the knee, and he lost the use of his right leg. The sister was saved because Dubus pushed her out of the way of the car.

As he did, an oncoming car hit them, killing the brother and crushing Dubus's legs. On an evening in 1986, Dubus stopped at a roadside to help a brother and sister injured in an accident.

As a devout Catholic throughout his life, his faith sometimes appeared explicitly in his writing and other times informed his work through themes of redemption and grace. He wrote a few novellas and one novel, Lieutenant (1967), but was mostly devoted to the short story, a form in which he is considered one of the masters. As an ex-Marine turned writer, Dubus (pronounced duh-BYOOSE) had a tough exterior and a tender heart - something he became known for in his work, which often deals with pain, tragedy, violence, and flawed characters with astonishing compassion and kindness. After leaving the Marines he studied at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. He studied journalism and English at McNeese State College then spent six years in the Marine Corps, during which time he married his first wife and had his first four children, including Andre Dubus III. It gets even more confusing when they share the same name, as is the case with father and son authors Andre Dubus and Andre Dubus III.Īndre Dubus was born into a Cajun-Irish Catholic family in 1936 Louisiana, the youngest child of Katherine (Burke) and André Jules Dubus. It can be confusing enough when members of the same family share a profession.

Townie by andre dubus