The Times Are Never So Bad

Andre Dubus was a short-story writer, essayist, and educator.

Debus was a former Marine who taught college for 20 years while submitting his stories to small literary magazines. In the summer of 1986, he was hit by a car in Massachusetts, where he had stopped to help an accident victim. He spent the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair.

Debus returned to writing after authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, John Irving, and John Updike held a benefit that helped defer his medical expenses. His 1997 collection of short stories, Dancing After Hours, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Rea Award. He received the PEN/Malamud Award, the Jean Stein Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and fellowships from both the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations.

Andre Dubus died on February 24, 1999.

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