The Winter Father, Andre Dubus
The Winter Father, Andre Dubus
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The Winter Father
Collected Short Stories and Novellas, Volume 2

Author: Andre Dubus, Joshua Bodwell, Richard Russo

Narrator: Robert Fass, Joe Barrett, Bronson Pinchot, Cassandra Campbell, Hillary Huber, various narrators

Unabridged: 15 hr 36 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/19/2019


Synopsis

While the title novella of Dubus’ Finding a Girl in America returns to the somewhat off-the-rails literary life of Hank Allison, the collection’s opening story strikes a much darker tone: “Killings”—the basis of the Academy Award–nominated film In the Bedroom—is a swift tale of revenge that leaves readers wondering what they might do in the name of family love.Dubus’ prowess with narrative compression is on full display in the story “Waiting”: the hollow ache experienced by a woman widowed by the Korean War took Dubus fourteen months to write and was more than one hundred pages in early manuscript form but spans a mere seven pages in published form.Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Joyce Carol Oates called “The Pretty Girl”—the opening novella of The Times Are Never So Bad—“the most compelling and suspenseful work of fiction [Dubus] has written.”Richard Russo’s introduction to this volume grapples with his complex feelings on reading Dubus’ work over many decades, but when it comes to the much-anthologized masterpiece “A Father’s Story,” Russo writes: “I won’t mince words. It’s one of the finest stories ever penned by an American.”

About Andre Dubus

Andre Dubus (1936–1999) is considered among the most talented American short-story writers of his generation. Born and raised in Louisiana, he spent his adult life living and teaching in blue-collar mill towns in northern New England. Dubus’ short stories and essays appeared in distinguished literary journals and magazines across the country, and were selected for numerous editions of the Best American Short Stories series, as well as the O. Henry Award and Pushcart Prize anthologies. Dubus’ work earned him MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Jean Stein Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and nominations for a National Book Critics Circle Award and Pulitzer Prize. In addition to seven collections of stories and novellas, Dubus published one novel and two collections of essays. The award-winning films In the Bedroom and We Don’t Live Here Anymore were adapted from his stories. Dubus is buried in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

About Richard Russo

Richard Russo is the author of Mohawk, The Risk Pool, Nobody's Fool, and Straight Man. He lives off the coast of Maine with his wife and two daughters.

About Robert Fass

Robert Fass is a veteran actor and twice winner of the prestigious Audie Award for the year’s best narration. He has earned many Earphones Awards and AudioFile magazine “Best of the Year” accolades.

About Joe Barrett

Joe Barrett, an actor and Audie Award and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has appeared both on and off Broadway as well as in hundreds of radio and television commercials.

About Bronson Pinchot

Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.

About Cassandra Campbell

Original bio sent from Cassandra: Cassandra Campbell began doing voice overs as the voice for Calvin Klein’s Italian commercials. This was followed by commercial and documentary recording in both English and Italian. She has recorded many audiobooks and has received several AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as an Audie® Award nomination. As an actress and director, she has worked at the Public, the Mint, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, Stagewest, Theatreworks, the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Millmountain Theatre, the National Shakespeare Company, and the New York Fringe Festival.  

About Hillary Huber

Hillary Huber is one of the most successful voice talents in Los Angeles. Recent books read for Blackstone Audio include Him, Her, Him Again, the End of Him by Patricia Marx, A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read, and A Map of Glass by Jane Urquhart.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Hannah on December 21, 2018

Again, Dubus knocks it out of the park with his sad, gorgeous stories. This middle collection shows his maturing style and subject-matter. Richard Russo's introduction was well worth the read - extremely insightful and thought-provoking, plus appropriate for our times.......more

Goodreads review by James on August 14, 2022

Dubus captures the dark side of love, family and fatherhood unapologetically in this collection of short stories and novellas. His style is captivating to the point where plot can at times be considered irrelevant, and I mean that in the most respectful way. I picked this volume up because of Richar......more

If love is time, then Dubus’s work may one day be discovered by a new generation of readers, who will love his writing as honestly and completely as he loved he craft of writing. — Finnegan Schick, The New Criterion Andre Dubus, one of the 20th century’s most gifted short story writers…like Raymond C......more

Goodreads review by Tom on August 29, 2024

I just read the two collections this book is compiled from: Finding a Girl in America and The Times are Never So Bad. This book features every story from both collections. I may not be as enamored with Andre Dubus as I once was--at least not as enamored with every story-- but his best short stories......more

Goodreads review by Tim on April 30, 2023

A writer of exceptional rarity whose stock and trade has always been the short story, Dubus's second collected volume in this series of three is so beyond the scope of what I expected--being unknown to most and reviewed here by but a few--that I am immeditely ordering the other two to complete the t......more


Quotes

“Andre Dubus, one of the twentieth century’s most gifted short-story writers…like Raymond Carver, became a master of the form.” New York Times

“The short story never rested in more honest hands than when Dubus wrote it.” New Criterion, praise for the author

“In each surprising tale, Dubus, equally empathic in portraying women and men, tackles with supreme candor precision, artistry, and valor the full emotional and moral weight of love, marriage adultery, friendship, parenthood, ambition, selfishness, and loneliness, subtly critiquing the social mores versus questions of self and faith.” Booklist (starred review) on We Don’t Live Here Anymore

“This volume and We Don’t Live Here Anymore will likely do much to revive interest in Dubus’ early work.” Kirkus Reviews