The Last Worthless Evening

Dubus's stories (now included in his Collected Short Stories & Novellas) tell of a suburban girl coming beautifully of age as her mother doesn't; a woman who refuses defeat at the hands of her brutal and pathetic husband; an eleven-year-old kid who meets up with a broken, angry, and decidedly dangerous Vietnam vet who takes him into a local bar for a treat. As novelist Richard Ford has said, "Dubus is a patient, resourceful and profound writer who never gives in to convention--although his situations are our situations, and imminently recognizable. The great, addictive pleasure of reading him arises from our anticipation that he is always going to say something interesting."