“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
Henry David Thoreau
It wasn’t until recently that I realized there was still a collection of short stories by Andre Dubus that I hadn’t read. I believe this collection was his last collection of stories. It seems that after his accident when he lost the use of his legs he turned to essays more frequently. By then he was established as a writer. Many famous writers had put a benefit on for him to support him after the tragic event when he had been hit by a car on a Massachusetts highway while saving the life of a Puerto Rican woman whose car was stranded on a dangerous road. Her son had been killed but Dubus managed to push the mother out of the way of the oncoming car as it struck him.
A strong and physically active man and former Marine who loved weightlifting and running before it became a fad (as he once put it), the suddenness of that event changed his life forever. His time with the Marines can be seen in many of his stories, and it can be safely said that his “code” of life included such ‘old-fashioned’ values as chivalry, virtue, honor and courage.
“Rose” is a story of quiet courage in the face of domestic violence and of the suddenness of an instant that can change things forever. Dubus does what he does best in this story. He gets inside the emotion and explores from the inside. While reading this I kept asking myself, how does he know this or do this? Was this auto-biographical or something he had observed first hand? And like many of his stories, he links events seemingly unrelated and finds the connection, the kernel of truth, to be mined and shared.
The story starts out relating something of his time in the Marine Corps during the early stages when the Marines are looking for just “a few good men” and sifting out the wheat from the chaff. He zeros in a young skinny kid from Chicago, who in his opinion, never should have made it into even the beginning stages of this gleaning process. The kid is a physical disaster – can barely manage to do 10 pushups, cannot climb to the top of a rope, and the drill sergeants do what they are supposed to do and eventually push him out of the Corps. But prior to that, he is caught sleep walking one night by some other recruits and in the process he is caught lifting a heavy locker that most ordinary men would struggle to lift under the best of circumstances. We’ve all heard stories of superhuman strength in times of stress and catastrophe – people lifting automobiles off of loved ones and that sort of thing. Dubus’ point is that the young recruit had the physical strength within him, but there was a disconnect between belief and the possibility of what he could do. He washed out of the Corps.
Meeting “Rose” in his local bar, he describes an aging single woman of no consequence, it seems, whose life is much like the life of countless millions of people who lead a humdrum and drab existence of no seeming importance. She and the author trade off buying drinks every so often and become friends of a sort, telling stories but avoiding anything of consequence until one night Rose tells him of the one thing in her life that was heroic and significant.
Domestic violence is often humming silently in the background of some of Dubus’ stories. The tension is often there, especially in his stories that involve marital infidelity and other sexual tension. But in “Rose” the engine finally gets into gear and we are taken into the horror of violence against children. The suddenness of this event changes everything forever and Rose finds the strength within her to save her children, but that event alters her life and the children’s lives forever in tragic ways. What is so powerful about the story is the ability of Dubus to create the horror and fear of the event, to see it through the eyes of the children and Rose, to be able to describe it so realistically, that one begins to wonder if there isn’t something biographical about it. The power of a physically strong blue collar worker unhinged and turned on the innocent is a tale of horror and punches the reader in the face with its graphic grittiness. And yet it brings out in Rose strength that she didn’t realize she had, and becomes the one event that is the defining event of her life. Tragic as it was, ordinary people sometimes do heroic things and things can change forever in the flicker of an instant. The consequences can be harsh, but lives can be saved, and a small square of a woman with hair like cotton, leads the quiet life of a heroism and loss, and quietly walks into a cold Massachusetts night while Dubus watches her from the bar’s entry, hoping she doesn’t slip on the icy snow.
Henry David Thoreau
It wasn’t until recently that I realized there was still a collection of short stories by Andre Dubus that I hadn’t read. I believe this collection was his last collection of stories. It seems that after his accident when he lost the use of his legs he turned to essays more frequently. By then he was established as a writer. Many famous writers had put a benefit on for him to support him after the tragic event when he had been hit by a car on a Massachusetts highway while saving the life of a Puerto Rican woman whose car was stranded on a dangerous road. Her son had been killed but Dubus managed to push the mother out of the way of the oncoming car as it struck him.
A strong and physically active man and former Marine who loved weightlifting and running before it became a fad (as he once put it), the suddenness of that event changed his life forever. His time with the Marines can be seen in many of his stories, and it can be safely said that his “code” of life included such ‘old-fashioned’ values as chivalry, virtue, honor and courage.
“Rose” is a story of quiet courage in the face of domestic violence and of the suddenness of an instant that can change things forever. Dubus does what he does best in this story. He gets inside the emotion and explores from the inside. While reading this I kept asking myself, how does he know this or do this? Was this auto-biographical or something he had observed first hand? And like many of his stories, he links events seemingly unrelated and finds the connection, the kernel of truth, to be mined and shared.
The story starts out relating something of his time in the Marine Corps during the early stages when the Marines are looking for just “a few good men” and sifting out the wheat from the chaff. He zeros in a young skinny kid from Chicago, who in his opinion, never should have made it into even the beginning stages of this gleaning process. The kid is a physical disaster – can barely manage to do 10 pushups, cannot climb to the top of a rope, and the drill sergeants do what they are supposed to do and eventually push him out of the Corps. But prior to that, he is caught sleep walking one night by some other recruits and in the process he is caught lifting a heavy locker that most ordinary men would struggle to lift under the best of circumstances. We’ve all heard stories of superhuman strength in times of stress and catastrophe – people lifting automobiles off of loved ones and that sort of thing. Dubus’ point is that the young recruit had the physical strength within him, but there was a disconnect between belief and the possibility of what he could do. He washed out of the Corps.
Meeting “Rose” in his local bar, he describes an aging single woman of no consequence, it seems, whose life is much like the life of countless millions of people who lead a humdrum and drab existence of no seeming importance. She and the author trade off buying drinks every so often and become friends of a sort, telling stories but avoiding anything of consequence until one night Rose tells him of the one thing in her life that was heroic and significant.
Domestic violence is often humming silently in the background of some of Dubus’ stories. The tension is often there, especially in his stories that involve marital infidelity and other sexual tension. But in “Rose” the engine finally gets into gear and we are taken into the horror of violence against children. The suddenness of this event changes everything forever and Rose finds the strength within her to save her children, but that event alters her life and the children’s lives forever in tragic ways. What is so powerful about the story is the ability of Dubus to create the horror and fear of the event, to see it through the eyes of the children and Rose, to be able to describe it so realistically, that one begins to wonder if there isn’t something biographical about it. The power of a physically strong blue collar worker unhinged and turned on the innocent is a tale of horror and punches the reader in the face with its graphic grittiness. And yet it brings out in Rose strength that she didn’t realize she had, and becomes the one event that is the defining event of her life. Tragic as it was, ordinary people sometimes do heroic things and things can change forever in the flicker of an instant. The consequences can be harsh, but lives can be saved, and a small square of a woman with hair like cotton, leads the quiet life of a heroism and loss, and quietly walks into a cold Massachusetts night while Dubus watches her from the bar’s entry, hoping she doesn’t slip on the icy snow.
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