Andrew Dubus – Digging | The Personal Essay: WRT 303.03

If the work is not published, or is published for little money and less public attention, it remains a spiritual, mental, and physical achievement; and if, in public it is the widow’s mite, it is also, like the widow, more blessed.”

As are we blessed and nourished by the work and vision of Andre Dubus.

Andre Dubus, born in Louisiana to a Catholic family, studied journalism and English at McNeese State College. He spent six years in the Marine Corps, during which he married his first wife and had his first four children, including Andre Dubus III. After leaving the Marines he studied at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. As an ex-Marine turned writer, Dubus (pronounced duh-byoose) had a tough exterior and a tender heart - something he became known for in his work, which often deals with pain, tragedy, violence, and flawed characters with astonishing compassion and kindness. He wrote a few novellas and one novel, (1967), but was mostly devoted to the short story, a form in which he is considered one of the masters. As a devout Catholic throughout his life, his faith sometimes appeared explicitly in his writing and other times informed his work through themes of redemption and grace.

On an evening in 1986, Dubus stopped at a roadside to help a brother and sister injured in an accident. As he did, an oncoming car hit them, killing the brother and crushing Dubus's legs. The sister was saved because Dubus pushed her out of the way of the car. Dubus's left leg was amputated above the knee, and he lost the use of his right leg. After several years of physical therapy, he was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, an experience he wrote about in the collection of essays, . His other works include ,, , and . He was awarded the PEN/Malamud, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Jean Stein Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He also received Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships, and nominations for a National Book Critics' Circle Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. Several of his stories and novellas have been adapted into films, including (based on "Killings") and (based on "We Don't Live Here Anymore" and "Adultery").

I was moved Andre Dubus’ “Digging”

Before finding his calling as a writer, Andre Dubus III (b. Oceanside, California) worked for brief stintsas a bounty hunter, private investigator, carpenter, bartender, actor, andteacher. His first book,

Quite simply, in the essays and even the fiction of Andre Dubus, readers will find some of the most impassioned, powerful words concerning the sacramental life, particularly Eucharist, to be found in contemporary spiritual writing.

Dubus wrote of a world permeated by God made visible in every action motivated by love: In a short story, “Out of the Snow,” a woman shops for groceries that her love will transform into meals: “Being a mother had taught her that sacraments were her work, and their number was infinite.” As Dubus himself makes a snack for his two young daughters, he reflects: “ the sandwiches are sacraments.

The anecdote Digging, which was written in 1998 by Andre Dubus and ..

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