Human Imperfection

The four stories that comprise Andre Dubus III’s new collection, Dirty Love, are very loosely connected.  Major characters in one story make cameo appearances in another; geography is shared. But the more important connections go much deeper. We all crave love. We want and need to love and to be loved. But love is rarely pure. It’s often mixed with other emotions and needs, or tainted by circumstance or by character flaws.  Hence the love as lived is dirty, not as in shameful, but in need of a good washing, which at least in these stories never really happens.  Indeed the dirt is the real subject here. Our need for love is so strong that it pulls us into situations that we actually know we should avoid, or at least we should do a better job of actively and skillfully navigating through this complicated and changing territory. But in general we don’t navigate well.  We try, we even achieve some temporary successes, but more often we fail. So we go on and we try again, often repeating the same failures.  Who is to say that we’d be better off without those failed relationships?  As long as no irreparable damage is done, perhaps we need to keep trying no matter what the outcome?

Dubus’s writing is awfully good. The first story is the strongest, and there are some truly haunting passages there. He describes a failing marriage in great detail.  The searing hurt, the desire for retribution, the irrational hope, the failure to understand what really happened, the misguided efforts to heal, it’s all there to contemplate.

The last story is by far the longest, and while it has some interesting elements, I’m not sure that it hangs together so well.  The juxtaposition of an older generation’s alcohol abuse with a younger generation’s internet use is interesting.

The middle stories are shorter and a bit less interesting. The second is particularly limited, but the third has more substance. The characters are in the process of learning about themselves, finding out who they are and what really might work for them. Unfortunately they learn mostly by making bad choices, and in the process they hurt themselves and others. But they do learn a little something about navigation along the way.

All four stories end in a kind of perfect balance. The main characters are at a turning point where they have choices to make about how to move forward. While for the most part we know that the outcome will have significant downsides, and those choices might lead to disaster, but we know the characters will try as best they can, then go on.  No happy endings here, but there is some hope for progress.  And if the ending isn’t pretty, there is plenty of emotional nourishment along the way.

Some of the complexity reminded me of McCann’s Let the Great World Spin.  Dubus lacks McCann’s tremendous Irish generosity of spirit, but he does have a similar sensitivity to human emotion and experience.  The human heart is on display here for all to marvel at.  Oh, the messes we get ourselves in, the pleasures we enjoy, the pain we endure. Dubus makes it all seem inevitable and maybe even forgivable.