Customer Reviews

Leap of the Heart: Andre Dubus Talking

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I don't know if I consider myself a short story writer or not. I do write them, but writing long fiction is what really sets my juices to flowing. Still, I've had more luck in publishing short stories than the longer form, and one of these days, I'll have to dig into that paradoxical item.
The book is a series of interviews, not a fiction or essay collection, so it would be stretching the point to try to critique it. So What I'll do is simply list a number of Dubus' insights, strategies, and talking points that might interest writers and/or readers.

* If you want to be famous, Dubus thinks, you're swimming upstream, both financially and artistically. He knows, as I've discovered, that creative writing isn't a smart venue for getting rich. There's very little pay, and when there is, the threat exists of having to adapt your story piece to a publication's editorial slant. Dubus adamantly refused to do this, much to his credit.
* In tandem with the above point, he near-sneered at prestigious magazines, such as The New Yorker, which will often ask writers to change their texts - to fit TNY's editorial position. I cheer, whistle, and applaud this, since I don't really like TNY fiction.
* Dubus grew on his own as a writer for a long while, then had the good fortune to be mentored, and this accelerated his learning of the craft. This has been my experience, too, under the guiding hand of Doris Betts and that of a couple of good writing teachers at UNC-Asheville.
* For him, characterization is everything. He claimed to have reached a certain plateau of excellence in story writing only by slowing down his drafts dwelling on the story idea until he had it fixed in his mind that his characters were real and vivid.
* He didn't say so in so many words, but his passion for writing (not $$) probably cost him each of his three marriages. Still, he claimed that his writing didn't essentially interfere with his family life.
* He read voraciously - and learned from it.
* He's never written a story he was completely happy with. That's my experience, too, but I keep going back to revise them. Dubus did, too, for many of his stories.
* Where did he get his stories from? Real life, he claims - by amplifying characters and observing life.
* His spiritual life overflows into his writing. He calls himself a Catholic writer.
* He's a traditionalist in almost everything, including literature. Perhaps that's why he persists in being a Catholic writer.


There's more here - much more. The interviews are often repetitive but there's always a tinge of uniqueness to everything he repeats on a given subject. This book is a great primer on the lifestyle and ethos of creative writing.

There isn't a lot of Andre Dubus criticism out there -- this is a must-have for anybody interested in the writer, whether for the stories that became films (In the Bedroom and We Don't Live Here Anymore) or just in general. Leap of the Heart received a terrific review in the New Orleans Times-Picayune on October 12, 2003.