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 But Dubus' native New England did not find a setting in his
fiction until he published a collection of novellas, “Dirty
Love,” which depicts small-city and shore-town residents in
messy quests for human relationships.
Dubus’ novels include “House of Sand and Fog,” which was made
into an Oscar-nominated movie. He is also the son of writer
Andre Dubus II, whose troubled family life was a major element
of "Townie."
He spoke to Reuters in a house he built by hand about the role
of landscape in his writing, his aversion to the wired life, and
the characters that define his work.
Q: How has setting stories closer to home influenced your
work?
A: It felt good to try to capture people from this region. I
grew up along the Merrimack River in these abandoned mill towns.
It was only when writing “Townie” that I wrote directly about
this place for the first time, and that kind of freed me up to
fictionalize it.
A place has rhythms, a flow like a river. There is a depth of
authority a writer has when writing about a place they know
well. The same is true when your write about the kinds of people
that you know well. But when it comes to place, I think you can
write your way to the bottom of your knowledge. Exploring never
ends when it comes to character.
I think about my father's work. (John) Updike called him “the
bard of Merrimack Valley,” and I remember thinking, no, he's
not. He sets his stories here, but he doesn't write about people
here. My old man’s voice was (his native) Louisiana.
Q: Are any real people from “Townie” depicted fictionally
in “Dirty Love”?
A: No. In many ways 'Dirty Love' is a departure in tone.
All of my fiction before 'Dirty Love' has some physical violence
in it. Then I write directly about the physical violence in my
youth (in “Townie”), and the first book I write afterwards has
no physical violence in it.
Q: How has the Internet affected the writer's role?
A: I have such mixed feelings. I think it’s improved the
quality of my writing to be able to deepen it so quickly with
research.
I really like the populist nature of the Internet. But I find it
really depressing how many of us stare at screens in our hands.
It’s like you walk into a room and everybody’s stoned.
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Q: You don’t have a smart phone?
A: I'm never going to have one. The only computer I have is
in my basement where I write. I think we need to reclaim our
solitude and the voices in our heads.
Q: A protagonist, Robert, in "Dirty Love" vividly recalled
his farm upbringing. Does that come from your experience?
A: I didn't know jack about dairy farms and I don’t even
drink milk. I had to do research.
I went into Robert and he delivered that piece of news. I believe
that these characters are real and they have one history. What
you’re penetrating is deeply mysterious, which is the writer’s
imagination.
Q: How do you avoid media character stereotypes.
A: I do protect myself from a lot of this. I’m really kind of
tuned out. I want to be disconnected from the noise so I can be
connected to something deeper.
But as a novelist who writes fiction set in contemporary America, I
can’t put my head in the ground. (In) "Dirty Love," I had to ask my
daughter, “Show me Facebook.” And then I asked her to show me how to
text.
Q: In “Dirty Love’s” opening piece, where did that line come
from, “his heart kicking like a hanged man's feet"?
A: I did not want to have a shopworn phrase. I tried to just
be deeply him, looking at the video of his wife cheating on him, and
then the image came to me from his emotional moment.
Q: The characters in “Dirty Love” come to terms with the
messiness of their relationships. Is that a universal human
condition?
A: I don’t care for stories that have neat endings. I like
‘em to end more musically, where whatever note has been played in
that symphony has an echo in the end.
(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Andre Grenon)
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