Bargain @ $1.99 for today only (Nov 25th) according to the newsletter from Open Road Media (couponable @ Kobo, should be available in all the standard Canada & US stores, may also be discounted in other regions, etc.):
The Times Are Never So Bad: A Novella and Eight Short Stories by the late Andre Dubus (
Wikipedia, and father of the namesake writer of the Oprah Book Club Selection
House of Sand and Fog), who's won a bunch of literary prizes and whom the Amazon bio-blurb says "is considered one of the greatest American short story writers of the twentieth century". This was originally published in 1983 from David R. Godine, which was apparently a Canadian imprint, according to the author's introduction.
Dubus’s fourth collection is a compassionate depiction of lives that are never as neat as his characters would have them be
In his fourth collection, Andre Dubus revisits the themes of infidelity and fallibility that he has been known to explore with such unflinching honesty and unfailing respect. Set in the New England landscape and populated by the men and women he has come to claim as his own, these stories are ultimately characterized by their extraordinary ordinariness. They are a reverent testament to the quiet sadness of humble lives.
Deeply moving and insightful, The Times Are Never So Bad is yet another masterful work by a writer whose Chekhovian sensibilities inform—yet never distract from—his own fully realized perspective.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Andre Dubus including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.