Broken Vessels [Paperback]

Andre Dubus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1992

Written between 1977 and 1990, universally acclaimed when they appeared in Godine hardcover, and exploring subjects close to home and close to the bone, these twenty-two diverse essays reveal the spiritual strength and shrewdly lyrical prose for which Andre Dubus has been recognized worldwide.

Personal but never indulgent, sensitive but never maudlin, these forays into Dubus's past and present conjure up small worlds: a Catholic boyhood in Cajun Louisiana, the transcendental quality of baseball, the luck and slipperiness of life, the precarious business of making a living by writing. These worlds are presented in a voice that is as powerful as it is poignant, that never flinches from the stark realities that have so colored Dubus's recent past and personal life. Especially moving are his descriptions of his children, his wrenching account of the 1986 automobile accident that cost him his leg, and of the ensuing struggle for his spiritual and physical survival.

Broken Vessels is a book that, in its scope and sympathy, its grace and courage, never fails to startle with the sudden impact of quiet truths, passionately felt and powerfully expressed.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Broken Vessels, Andre Dubus's first collection of essays, was written between 1977 and 1990. During this period, Dubus hit his peak as an essayist, survived an accident that almost destroyed his will to write, and went on to regain and exceed his earlier power as a writer. Reading this book is almost as rich an experience as meeting a fascinating person: you'll learn the best way to scramble eggs, why baseball is a transcendental experience, the risks and rewards of idealistic poverty, and what it's like to see ghosts. Dubus writes as a Catholic, and most of his essays speak explicitly of the sacramental nature of his everyday experiences. Particularly effective are the essays describing Dubus's struggle to recover from a traffic accident that occurred after he stopped to help stranded motorists on a roadside in 1986. "Lights of the Long Night" is among the best of these, containing the kind of writing that makes you close the book immediately, knowing you've seen so deeply into a person's soul that you have to sit with what you've learned and wait for some sense of how to respond before you're entitled to keep turning the pages. --Michael Joseph Gross

From Publishers Weekly

Dubus writes with searing candor, grace and tenderness in these autobiographical essays.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: David R Godine (August 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879239484
• ISBN-13: 978-0879239480
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #434,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andre Dubus (1936-1999) is considered one of the greatest American short story writers of the twentieth century. His collections of short fiction, which include Adultery & Other Choices (1977), The Times Are Never So Bad (1983), and The Last Worthless Evening (1986), are notable for their spare prose and illuminative, albeit subtle, insights into the human heart. He is often compared to Anton Chekhov and revered as a "writer's writer."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For all of us who are Broken and Seeking Wholeness, April 27, 2000

By 

Carol (Neptune, NJ, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Broken Vessels (Paperback)

Andre Dubus' writing is like having a conversation with an old friend. He tells it "like it is." He invites us into his life and the broken people who are present there. He holds nothing back, leaving us to witness his brokenness without any regret on his part. If you've never read essays, or have never enjoyed them before, I highly recommend this book as well as Dubus' "Meditations from a Movable Chair." These two works are wonderful reading! They both move quickly and the literary form of the essay allows one to pick up and read each essay separately, and not have the pressure of reading a whole book. Also, each essay is very reflective and thought-provoking so as to add a spiritual dimension to these works. I would recommend reading "Broken Vessels" first, then any of Dubus' other works, as "Broken Vessels" gives us some insight into who this person, Andre Dubus truly is.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Voice of the heart, July 30, 2002

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Broken Vessels (Paperback)

Andre Dubus died in 1999, at the age of 63. He wrote short stories and essays, in a steady, straightforward style that often seems to be with the voice of the heart itself. This collection of essays, written between the years 1977 and 1990, tells of his boyhood in Louisiana, his years as a marine, and his life as a student, writer, teacher, husband and father.

He is a mixture of a very proud man who is also humbled by what reflection reveals to him of life's meaning. A practicing Catholic, his writing exhibits a strong moral sense. He reaches consistently for a single, coherent perspective from which to see and understand everything. In an age of hype and self-promotion, his sense of himself as a writer seems very old-fashioned. He wonders, for instance, how the quality of writing is affected when you do it for money. Or, as in The New Yorker, your words appear next to advertisements for luxury products.

A celebrator of friendship, he speaks lovingly of the men who are his friends. And he shows a strongly democratic spirit in the respectful attention he pays to the conversations of laborers and Amtrak crew members. He speaks less freely about his love for the women in his life, as if to say much would betray intimacies. The title of the book refers to an accident in 1986, when helping a stranded motorist on a dark highway in Massachusetts, Dubus was struck by another car. Losing one leg and the use of the other, he never walked again.

His essays on running, playing baseball as a boy, intervening in an assault of a teenage girl by her boyfriend, a cross-country train trip, yield to descriptions of physical therapy and learning to live in a wheelchair. You read page after page of this account, and you look at your own legs, maybe crossed as you sit or stretched out in front of you, suddenly glad for them and aware that you may never take them for granted again. With luck, you won't take yourself for granted again either. Dubus has that effect on you. He is also author of a more recent and equally fine collection of essays, "Meditations From a Movable Chair."

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Deeper Look, March 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Broken Vessels (Paperback)

This book is a revealing look at one of the best writer's writers working today. If you've read his fiction, you know Dubus is one of the best male writers writing women characters today, always a fascinating accomplishment and this book reveals more of the man behind the sensitivity in his fiction. Includes itimate details of his life after the tragedy that changed everything.