Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Dubus, Andre (Vol. 97) - Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review date 14 March 1996)

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Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review date 14 March 1996)

SOURCE: "Afraid of Sharks, Rifles, and the Passing of Time," in The New York Times. March 14, 1996, p. C19.

[Lehmann-Haupt is the New York Times's book critic. In the following review, he explores the various ways in which Dubus applies the element of fear in the stories of Dancing After Hours.]

People coping with fear is the predominant theme of the 14 stories in Andre Dubus's fine new collection, Dancing After Hours, his first work of new fiction to be published since he was badly injured in a traffic accident a decade ago.

Sometimes the fear is a memory, as in two cases of veteran soldiers recalling the terror of battle. At other times the fear is anticipation of loneliness, particularly well rendered in "Sunday Morning," where a 36-year-old woman grows weary of making love to yet another man uninterested in permanence: "She saw him going home to his shower and...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Gene Lyons (review date 26 February 1977)
   2. Anatole Broyard (review date 20 November 1977)
   3. Gilberto Perez (essay date Winter 1980–81)
   4. William H. Pritchard (essay date Winter 1983–84)
   5. Andre Dubus with Thomas Kennedy (interview date ca. 1985)
   6. Steve Yarbrough (essay date Fall 1986)
   7. Paul Gray (review date 10 November 1986)
   8. Joseph J. Feeney (essay date 15 November 1986)
   9. Andre Dubus with Patrick H. Samway (interview date 15 November 1986)
   10. Art Seidenbaum (review date 23 November 1986)
   11. Clancy Sigal (review date 21 December 1986)
   12. Jack Sullivan (review date 11 January 1987)
   13. Ellen Lesser (review date 20 January 1987)
   14. Thomas E. Kennedy (essay date February 1987)
   15. Eva Hoffman (review date 6 November 1988)
   16. Richard Eder (review date 20 November 1988)
   17. John B. Breslin (essay date 2 December 1988)
   18. Ellen Lesser (review date 17 January 1989)
   19. Anne Tyler (review date 6 February 1989)
   20. Freddie Baveystock (review date 6-12 April 1990)
   21. Leonard Kriegel (review date 11 August 1991)
   22. Mark Hummel (review date October-November 1991)
   23. David Toolan (review date 22 November 1991)
   24. Publishers Weekly (review date 1 January 1996)
   25. Doris Lynch (review date 15 February 1996)
   26. Richard Bausch (review date 25 February 1996)
   27. Mark Shechner (review date 10 March 1996)
   28. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review date 14 March 1996)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright