We Don’t Live Here Anymore
by Andre Dubus (2004)
Dubus is considered by many the greatest short story writer of the 20th century, and there is fairness in this claim. This book consists of three novellas, woven together and taken from earlier Dubus publications. It is also a wonderful movie starring the enigmatic Laura Dern and Naomi Watts. It’s about two middle-aged couples who can’t seem to keep their pants on. Affairs are had, feelings crushed, epiphanies thwarted, friendships tested.
But what makes this one of the great books is the “realness” it elicits from the reader. It puts the reader in every character’s mind, and it puts us right there in the bedroom, in the woods, or on the back porch. Not only does “We Don’t Live Here” entertain us, it gives us a rubric of how to live our own lives. Shows us that nobody ever has anything figured out, not really. That what we do and feel morphs and shifts. Shows us what to do when everything we’ve held on to for so long goes away, how to bear it. It’s about desperation, and love, and marriage. It’s about paralyzing loneliness, kids, and housewives, and betrayal. Ultimately it’s about what it’s like to live in a world where we get to make all the decisions, and have to bear the repercussions of what those decisions mean. It does what a great book is supposed to do: it makes us feel.
Post a Comment