Some books give you so much more than just a story - for me this was such a book. In the version I read there were four novellas. Three of them were essentially elements of the same story but cut into sections which overlapped and highlighted the plight of one or more of the central players. The fourth (but sequenced first) was a stand alone piece, albeit there were some common geographical references. At the centre of each novella was a relationship or a number of inter-linked relationships; ea...

I picked this up at the sorely missed and aptly named Last Hurrah Bookstore. The four novellas are brim full of married people blowing up like powder kegs and falling in love with the debris / the nearest falling objects, the victims, anything but themselves. They are thirty-ish, their hearts are cooling off, their love interests are more or less seasonal, they mourn the loss of the vigour of youth and they are hell bent on forgiving and repeating foolish acts.As a whole all that rather bores me...

Ugh! He can write. I just find what he writes about hard to stomach. And he also intrudes his own writing process into the whole onus on top of it. Not that any of this misery is untrue or unreal. But writers writing about writers' writing always loses an entire star for me. The novella of the title was too off-putting to want to continue the last few stories at the slower pace they deserved for the word skill Dubus holds- but I sped read them and am sorry I did. All are cored the same. Miserabl...

Meh.I liked it, but thought it was only OK.Two couples that are friends cheat on each other with the other’s spouse. Everyone gets found out and one couple decides to stay together, while the other tries to have an open marriage that ultimately ends up in divorce. The second two stories follow the characters from the open marriage/divorce. The ones that stay together are only mentioned less than a handful of times in the following two stories, and to be honest, that’s the couple I was more inter...

"There are two types of unhappy people in the world" Hank said. "Those who show it and those who don't."I truly loved this book. I haven't seen the movie - and I think I could probably carry on living quite happily without seeing it - but the book felt rather astonishing to me. It's about the divides between love, sex and marriage, although it by no means offers guidelines to any of those. It did, however, feel full of small truths that struck me to the heart and often made me pause to think abo...

There is no question that Dubus was a master craftsman of short fiction. It is difficult for me to read his work because so many of his male characters are pugnacious, unapologetic misogynists who very often wear Catholicism on their sleeves. In one piece, a male narrator brags about the stink he leaves in the bathroom each morning so that his girlfriend might endure it while making up her face.Many of his male protagonists are woman-haters. Was Dubus making a statement about misogyny? Sadly, no...

Three novellas that can stand alone, but together their interwoven stories of thirtysomethings dealing with faithlessness, failing marriages and the specter of middle age looming ever closer make a rich story even greater than their parts (if that is even possible).Dubus has an uncanny talent of writing simple sentences that say so much about his characters, and in turn, the human condition. You can't read one of his stories and not come away from the experience changed.

so this is a book of novellas about relationships and friendships! I saw the movie before reading this but nice translation of the different overlapping character stories into the movie!

Very very bleak image of man and woman and what we do to eachother in terms of intimacy in relationships. There is a bit more to this than in the film, specifically one of the characters after the major tumultuous relationship rift. I think perhaps the most finely crafted aspect of it is how intellectuals fool themselves.

Amazing. Masterful. A complex and nuanced look into the lives of people on the brink, people at odds with their existence.

I have the Picador edition, 1984 Published in great britain. The cover picture is different to the one shown here.Andre Dubus, the master short story writer, toiled in relative obscurity during much of his lifetime. Though known primarily for his stories, Mr. Dubus also wrote essays and novellas. His only novel, THE LIEUTENANT, was published in 1967. Though publishers clamored for novels, Mr. Dubus wrote what his stories asked of him. Sometimes the story wanted to be seven pages, sometimes twent...

I certainly prefer Dancing After Hours, but this isn't bad. The first two stories are so... sad. I definitely don't want to see the movie if it's based only on those. The timing of the stories and the way each character changes made me think about how hopelessly we're all at the whim of other people's changes of heart. If only Hank had gone through what he goes through in "Finding a Girl in America" before he had met Edith. While I find his reaction to what Monica did rather appalling, if a radi...

This collection was excellent, and contained a really unbelievable number of references to housecleaning. The characters in the title story and "Adultery" are Carver people living in Cheever's neighborhood, putting Dubus at a literary intersection where he may write more grandly than Carver does, and write about women far more perceptively than Cheever does...but only in regards to their behavior while drinking, being cheated on, cooking bacon in the morning and operating a vacuum....It should b...

The writing was poetic, but the author was a bit too misogynistic for my liking. His archetype of male protagonists are hard to be likable, which is intended, but their dedication to what is means to be a man, is a little unrealistic.

A masterful look at marriage, divorce, families, adultery, superfluous relationships, drinking too much, and what life is all about.

I was alternately weeping, disgusted and energized by this collection of novellas. I know nothing of the film made from/about them.Those reviewers who see intersection among Updike, Carver and Cheever are on track, I think. The varied portrayal of men and women, of marriage and adultery, of cooking and cleaning and writing and thinking and forsaking and, finally through the death of Joe, priest who sees clearly before dying, illuminates and toil and travail, the sticky mess and glorious sense of...

This guy is a masterful storyteller. These three novellas intertwine and delve into the challenges facing men and women as they attempt a life of monogamy. Hank Allison is an author whose work at the local college makes it possible for him to engage in numerous affairs with young students – culminating in a life of adultery, whereupon his own wife then engages in her own adulterous affairs (first with his best friend, and then with an ex-priest), but at what cost to herself? Dubus’ writing style...

DNF on page 45. This is the 2nd Andre Dubus book I have attempted and it will be the last. I want to like his stories so much because I love his son's, Andre Dubus II, books. However, their writing styles are very different and I'm not going to force it any longer.Dubus writes short stories and mostly about very troubled, disturbing relationships and I don't care for the characters. BUT the most annoying aspect is his overuse of pronouns. So much so, that I would lose track of who "him" and 'her...

This could have been a 5 star book but I felt it lost its dynamic along the way.I liked the first two novellas much more than the third but still this book is shockingly good!I am married too ( as the two couples )but I am happily married ( not as the two couples).However,even though our circumstances were not close,I felt deeply a lot of what the author said.I could even relate to people I did not even like.Perhaps it was the fantastic writing that did the trick for me but I was sold every time...

I have read his son’s work but this was my first reading of his. The son’s gifts came naturally. These were powerful, gut wrenching stories that, at times took my breath away with their raw beauty and emotion. Three of the novellas are an interwoven story of different times in the lives of two married couples. Dubus skillfully tells each party’s thread in the story with ease and the reader is carried along like the ebbing and flowing tide. Highly recommend

Man! He can write! A slow read, pausing to reread and digest passages. This was written by a person with a troubled soul, and yet a soul that understands that happiness is achievable. He portrayed all of the characters so well, without turning them into caricatures. This is a deep, thoughtful read and not for the faint of heart who walk a straight moral line.

A lot of raw human emotion presented in these stories, and hard to feel happy after reading them. But the humorous, shredding, and heartbreaking nature of failed relationships is captured precisely. Good read!

(spoiler alert) Great writing, but very flawed characters. I think of all the people in the story the one who I least feel deserves any happy ending would be Hank, and yet it all worked out for him. Book is intense, not boring, but you will need to come up for air after reading.

I listened to this book on audiobook. I think the readers detracted from the stories - one man was monotone! Otherwise, this book is about adultery, divorce, death, and depressing!!

pretty pedestrian fiction.

Oh no, I got married too young so I’m cheating on my spouse who is also cheating on me. Fuck you.

Rather enjoyed this look into married life. Shows exactly why I am terrified of it. Great character building. Curious if the movie based on it is any good

“We Don’t Live Here Anymore” is a collection of three novellas written by Andre Dubus. The stories follow the lives of two couples over the course of several years as they indulge in affairs both within their marriages and with others. The first novella, “We Don’t Live Here Anymore,” is told from the perspective of Jack, a college professor who is married to Terry, who is a stay at home mother. Jack and Terry are best friends with Hank and Edith. Hank is a professor on the same campus, and also

This book was satisfying, if only because of Dubus's rich, engaging prose. Every sentence sounds like poetry, yet the effect is not sappy or tiresome. It draws you in and introduces you to the book, and then carries you throughout the whole novel. I'm going to write my review by novella, because each one is so unique and fascinating, for a different reason."The Pretty Girl" was the most depressing of the four, but all of them are dark, to say the least. The most interesting and therefore definin...

Andre Dubus's work satisfies in that the author clearly managed to write what he knew and where, in life, he struggled. These novellas are no exception; I felt a little uncomfortable, reading them, because I knew I'd entered someone's private pain and was experiencing his raw vulnerability.I've found Dubus's work a good place to turn since burning through Hemingway's. Same absence of fluff, same stark quality to the language. The big difference is Dubus's concentration not on physical landscape