Big story in the Times today on the most honored writer in my little corner of Essex County. A reporter returns with Andre Dubus III to the Florida strip clubs where three of the 9/11 hijackers whiled away their final hours, and where Dubus researched his new novel "Garden of Last Days." It's the kind of piece the Times does when your last book ("House of Sand and Fog") was an Oprah fave and an Academy Award-nominated movie. A stripper and a hijacker are among the troubled characters whose paths collide over the course of a few hours in the new book.
One of the first places you would have read about the book was right here at HubArts: "When 'The Garden of Last Days' does hit shelves, I suspect you will again be reading much about the author from Newbury."
Janet Maslin was not kind in her Times review of the novel yesterday. But John Dufresne gave it a rave in the Globe last week. "Dubus knows that you may not make sense out of the incomprehensible, but you can make art. He has done just that in this incandescent and absorbing novel," Dufresne wrote. I'm going to read it this weekend.
Andre Dubus III read from The Garden of Last Days in New York a couple of days ago. Here is a video from the reading: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OV-psGzyCQ
Posted by: Steve | June 13, 2008 at 10:35 AM