GHOST DOGS

A new nonfiction collection from the award-winning fiction author.

Dubus III, who also wrote a well-received memoir, Townie, gathers 18 deeply personal essays, all but one previously published, on fatherhood, manhood, family, vocation, and, most of all, love and gratitude. The father of three writes tenderly of his sense of wonder after the birth of his daughter—“those moments of unspeakable grace” holding a newborn—and of his overwhelming fear when his four-week-old son underwent emergency surgery to correct a congenital malformation. The author honors his wife, whom he credits with nurturing his life “of peace and stability and deep fulfillment.” But that life has been hard won. Growing up in poverty, raised by a single mother after his father abandoned the family, Dubus lived in 25 houses throughout his childhood and was bullied as the new boy in town and at school whenever they moved. Angry and defiant, he transformed himself into a muscular fighter with “a short fuse for bad behavior of any kind.” Several essays probe the connection between violence and masculinity—e.g., the irresistible allure of guns and the adrenalin rush of a fight. By the time he was in his 20s, though, the author felt terrified that he was incapable of “truly loving someone, and being loved back.” A relationship with one girlfriend was doomed by unbridgeable differences in money and class: Her wealth, he writes, “created a chasm between us we tried to pretend wasn’t there.” Still, while they were together, she taught him to knit—an act that at first he denigrated as a sign of her privilege, but soon came to value. “It required me to focus,” he admits, “and it allowed me to drift, too.” Although inevitable repetitions occur in pieces written over several decades, the collection melds into a touching memoir.

Intimate, moving essays.