Andre Dubus III, Writer: I think it's important for a writer to trust what he or she is curious about.

And I think that within that curiosity, being pulled to the subject, is something deeper going on in the writer that has to be addressed.

And, and so I follow those.

I just follow those.

Marcia Franklin, Host: Coming up, I talk with author Andre Dubus III about his work and life.

That's "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference."

Stay tuned.

(Music) Major funding is provided by the Idaho Public Television Endowment and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Franklin: Hello and welcome to "Conversations from the Sun Valley Writers' Conference."

I'm Marcia Franklin.

My guest today draws upon his lived experiences for both his fiction and non-fiction works.

Andre Dubus III was raised by a single mother after his father, a well-known short story writer also named Andre Dubus, left her.

Growing up in a financially challenged household in a crime-ridden neighborhood, Dubus took to street-fighting to protect himself and his loved ones.

He resisted following the same literary path as his father.

But as he relates in his memoir, "Townie," writing, not fighting, was ultimately what saved him.

He went on to publish nine books, including the New York Times' bestsellers "House of Sand and Fog" and "The Garden of Last Days."

"House of Sand and Fog" was a finalist for the National Book Award and was also adapted into a feature film that garnered three Academy Award nominations, including Best Actor for Ben Kingsley.

And for over three decades, Mr.

Dubus has also been a professor in the English department at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

I spoke with him at the 2025 Sun Valley Writers' Conference about his latest work, a collection of personal essays called "Ghost Dogs: On Killers and Kin."

We also talked about the digital world we're now in, and how he guards himself against it.

Marcia Franklin, Host: Well, welcome to Idaho.

I understand this is your first time, your... Andre Dubus III, Author: First time to Idaho.

Franklin: Wow.

Dubus: How did that happen?

I don't know.

Franklin: I don't know, either.

Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: You going to spend some time after this… Dubus: I think so.

Franklin: …kind of wandering around or getting lost or…?

I know you don't have a GPS or anything like that… Dubus: I don't.

Franklin: …so you can really get lost here.

Dubus: I can really get lost.

Franklin: Right?

Because you don't have a cell phone and all the fancy... Dubus: No cell.

I have a flip phone.

Franklin: …doodads.

You have flip phones.

Dubus: But I do not have…I have one flip phone.

I keep it in my truck.

I never carry it.

No, I've never sent a text.

Never been on social media.

Do not have GPS, will not.

I don't like what it's done to people.

I mean, honestly, it sounds like I'm just being strange.

But the truth is, you know, I've been teaching college kids for 35-plus years, and I've watched since around 2012 their communal joy has plummeted.

It's not global warming, it's not mass shootings, both of which are horrific enough.

I'm convinced it's staring at these useless addictive gadgets for six to 11 hours a day.

It's robbed them of their joy, of their vitality.

They don't know how to talk to people anymore.

I don't blame them.

I blame Silicon Valley.

So it's a one-man protest.

I'm going to bring the whole system down by not using it.

What I love most about life are human beings, so I cannot own an iPhone.

I think it's done a real number.

I love the internet.

I love my MacBook Pro and Google and YouTube.

But I have to go to a room to turn it on and then I leave that room.

It, it, it enrages me.

And it breaks my heart when I see a family sitting at a restaurant and they're all staring at screens.

So you're never going to know that child across from you.

And that child's never going to know dad, who's tired after work, or mom.

So, it's a real…don't get me started.

(Laughs.)

Franklin: Well, as long as they watch this program on their phone… Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: …it'll be okay.

Dubus: And I know it's not all bad.

But I think it's more bad than good, and I will not take part.

Franklin: Well, you can get joyously lost in Idaho… Dubus: Yes.

Franklin: without… Dubus: I'm going to get lost.

Franklin: …a GPS.

You can go on some dirt roads.

And just let, let somebody know that you're gone when you leave.

So that… Dubus: That's what my kids say.

"Dad… Franklin: …we can come look for you.

Dubus: "He went north."

Yeah, but they don't know where north is unless they look at their damn gadget.

So there's an issue.

(Laughter) Franklin: Well, you are in Hemingway country.

Dubus: Yes.

Franklin: I know that you came across Hemingway when you were a late teen.

Dubus: Mm hmm.

Franklin: …and it had an effect on you, his work.

Dubus: It really did, um, especially his short stories.

It's really, it saddens me that his -- he helped to do this -- this whole swinging 'you know what,' machismo myth over him -- is really sullied his work.

And you know, all of that machismo, very little of it is in his work.

His work is full, as you know, of vulnerability and pain and fragility and death and, and loss and broken love.

Franklin: Well, and I've read some of your writing about him and how you admire how much he's a master of just whittling, whittling, whittling, too.

Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: Um, you know, creating the oyster, I think, I believe you said… Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: about "Old Man and the Sea," and then finding that pearl.

Dubus: Yeah, because "Old Man and the Sea" came from a 1500-page, seven-year effort called "The Sea Book," three volumes.

And one day Hemingway woke up or concluded the only thing worth a damn in that pile of pages is the story of the fish, the boy and the old man.

But he had to -- and I tell this to students, I say, "Give yourself permission to overwrite.

Give yourself permission to do a bloated draft.

Open all the doors, write with incredible curiosity."

And then, and then you've got to have the nerve and the will to cut.

I don't care if it's 19 months of your life, if it's not serving what the reader's ultimately going to get, you got to cut it.

And it took me a while to learn that.

Franklin: I, I read your, um, PEN Hemingway keynote address a couple of times… Dubus: Oh, thank you.

Franklin: …which was in 2012.

It was very interesting to me.

Because you talked about it as an antidote to digi-modernism or pseudo-modernism.... Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: …going back to what we were just talking about about phones.

But talk, talk to our viewers about this, what this literary genre, if you will, might be, the digi-modernism, pseudo-modernism that we're in right now.

Dubus: Yeah.

I mean, you know from your own life in the digital world that if you're on your computer and you're not paying for whatever you're looking at, that you are the product.

We've become the product.

And on one level it seems like good, creative fun, but I think it's actually sinister.

And, and that what's behind it is actually, uh, this technology that's putting us in a trance and is taking us from the moment.

And what I love about modernism -- of which, you know, Hemingway was one of the leaders -- um, modernism was one of the first to really address the interior life of, of all of us.

Hemingway's always got a great line.

He said, "Writing is easy until you think of the reader."

And I think that ultimately, my favorite definition of art is from Tolstoy: "Art is transferring feeling from one heart to another."

That is so simple and yet so not easy.

Um, and how do you transfer feeling from one heart to another?

I'm an old-fashioned writer in this sense.

I think the job of the writer is to illuminate human truth before we're dead.

We're here to try to capture something honest about what it is to be alive.

And so, yeah, this whole digi-modernism to me is um, a dehumanization.

You know, we're becoming a machine.

And don't even get me started on AI and the sinister, very sinister development that AI is.

I think it's great if it can help really, you know, consolidate, you know, 18 months of data gathering for cancer research.

By all means use it.

Do not bring it into my classroom.

Do not bring it into the creative life of human beings.

It's a frigging machine and it should be killed.

I get so angry.

This is not going to help us.

One of my favorite lines from a Mary Oliver poem: "Pay attention, be astonished, tell about it."

How am I going to be astonished if I'm not paying attention?

It seems to me that if writers are nothing, they're truth seekers, whether it's fiction or nonfiction.

We are seeking some sort of truth and seeking a way to record it with words.

Um, I don't think in the history of humanity has truth-seeking ever been more important than it is now.

I think that, especially realist fiction, um, is really about going into the truth.

And the only thing that's going to save us is the truth.

And if I keep hitting the snooze button on my pain, hitting the snooze button on my pain, I am never going to get through it.

Got to face it.

So, I'm a warrior against it all.

It's, it's, we will not grow, we will not thrive, we will not live authentic lives with this technology.

It will erode us.

Franklin: Well, you've given me a perfect segueway to "Ghost Dogs."

Dubus: Mmm.

Franklin: Because you are very much there and you're very much looking at the pain and the suffering that, uh… Dubus: Thank you.

Franklin: …you've experienced.

These are essays that are collected, you've written over time.

Dubus: Mmm.

Franklin: What was going on in your mind that you wanted to now compile these essays?

Dubus: Um.

Good question.

I haven't thought about why.

Well, I realized I had about 40 of them, and um, over the years I've had people ask, "Well, why don't, why don't you collect these?"

Um, but I should probably tell you why I even write them.

I, um, the honest answer is, I don't know.

Um, it takes me three to five years to write a novel, and then when I finish one, I often feel as if I'm not quite ready to step into another dreamworld of fiction.

But there are things that I've experienced that I need to penetrate, to explore.

Again, this notion, not of escapism, but of going into the thing itself.

Tim O'Brien's got this great line.

I'm sure you've interviewed… Franklin: One of my favorite interviewees.

Dubus: Yeah, he's wonderful.

You know, one of our finest.

O'Brien said, "Writing fiction involves a desire to enter the mystery of things."

One, one of the insights I had about my own life was that I've lived one so far.

And I don't mean that in a, in a braggadocio sort of way.

Like, I've never had a three-year plan.

I've never had a three-week plan.

I've lived intuitively my whole life.

And so, reading those essays, I realized I've lived so much of my life instinctively.

"No, I'm going over here.

Did that; now I'm going to do this."

And I was born in 1959, and I was coming of age in the 70s, and I was a small kid who wore glasses – I wrote all about this in that memoir, "Townie."

My performance was Billy Jack, Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood.

Just, "I'm gonna -- you're going to come after my family, I'm going to kill you."

"You're going to go after a woman and try to rape her; I'm going to kill you."

And I became a vigilante.

But I really feel like my life began when I became a father.

My God, I can't get over the incredible experience of being a parent.

Franklin: That was definitely a throughline for me… Dubus: Good.

Franklin: …in this, in that, that despite, as you say, all the moving about and twists and turns -- you know, your wife, your kids, the solidity of that is at the core, I think.

One of, one of the essays that I really fell into and relates to what you were just saying about you wanted to kill somebody, was "If I Owned a Gun."

Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: That essay talks about, um, how wedded you and your father were to guns… Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: …for a long time.

Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: And in a way, addicted to the potential of a gun.

Dubus: Yeah, to protect.

Franklin: Not necessarily using it, but having it.

Dubus: Yeah, yeah.

If you own a handgun, you are 400 times more likely to get shot.

Having a gun draws us to it.

It's the worst thing we can do.

And as you know, there are three guns for every man, woman, and child in this country.

So that's almost a billion guns.

And it's not going away.

Franklin: Yeah, you talk about several near misses in your own life… Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: …where either you could have, you could have shot somebody or… Dubus: I almost cut my brother in half with a shotgun by accident.

We were teenagers.

My father almost shot me in the head when we were ironically getting ready to sell his guns; we were putting, uh, trigger guards on the guns.

Franklin: Another essay that, um, was very difficult to read, but really moved me, was the titular one, "Ghost Dogs."

Dubus: Mmm.

Franklin: Um, in which you talk about your relationship with dogs over the years and how associated with pain they are, because (of) how many painful experiences -- from your father killing a dog, to dogs you tried to save, but couldn't.

Dubus: Mmm.

Franklin: Um, from you yourself kicking a dog… Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: You would look at a dog and all you could think was "pain," and so you just kind of wrote 'em out of your life for a while.

Dubus: I wrote 'em out, um… Franklin: And it just was a really interesting interior essay, I thought.

Dubus: Well, thank you.

And something weird, two things about that.

When I wrote my memoir, "Townie," which came out about, I don't know, 12 or so years ago, looking back -- you know, the opposite of "remember" is not "forget," it's "dismember."

Chop, chop, chop.

And when I reached for the pieces of that -- my childhood that became my memoir "Townie" -- not one piece had a dog in it.

I forgot all about the dogs.

I wasn't focused on the dogs.

I was so focused on the broken family and the poverty and the violence, and my mother's struggling as a single mom in First World poverty, et cetera, the drugs.

I, so I was really grateful I could really explore me and dogs.

And when I finished that essay, first it uncovered -- I remembered 18 puppies dying in my lap, which was a trauma that I totally repressed.

And after that, I'm never going to love a dog again; I was 13.

Um, but when I finished writing that essay, it changed my relationship to our dog.

I actually began to love that dog.

We had a lovely rapprochement the last few months of his life.

That, that's never happened to me before, where something I wrote changed me.

Even the memoir didn't change me so much as that essay.

Franklin: One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because you wrote a book, which many people may know as a movie as well, called "House of Sand and Fog."

Dubus: Mmm.

Franklin: And I, um, have been very fortunate to have spent time in Iran.

Dubus: Mmm.

Franklin: And "House of Sand and Fog" is about, um, in part, a man who used to be an associate of the Shah, who has to flee during the revolution, comes to California and has to start life again working on cleaning up the roads… Dubus: Mmm hmm.

Franklin: …far beneath him.

When I first heard about "House of Sand and Fog," I thought, "How in the world could a guy from United States of America write about a culture that I know I haven't even begin to scratch the surface, begun to scratch the surface of.

It's a complex Persian society.

So I went into it with… Dubus: Skeptical, dubious.

Franklin: A little askance.

Dubus: Mmm hmm.

Franklin: "Dubious Dubus."

Dubus: Ha.

One of my friends calls me that!

(Laughter.)

Franklin: But you nailed it.

You had all the, the, the, uh… Dubus: Thank you.

Franklin: …expressions down that I've heard, too.

But even more than that, I think, this, um, shame that is carried by so many people -- and people I know in the present tense now who've had to flee, you know, prominent positions in Afghanistan or wherever… Dubus: Mmm hmm.

-- and come and try and start again and doing the best they can.

Dubus: Mmm hmm.

I think you really encapsulated it.

You got it.

And as well, how quickly things can change in our lives.

Dubus: Oh, yeah.

Franklin: And the whole deck of cards tumbles down.

Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: From an accident, or… Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: …you know, revolution, or buying a house you didn't realize you shouldn't have bought.

Dubus: Yeah.

Franklin: You know, that book changed your life, didn't it?

Dubus: Um, yeah, it became a huge bestseller and made into a movie, and then Oprah Oprah-fied it and made it even more of a bestseller, so.

But it gave me an audience.

I mean, that was the biggest thrill for me.

It gave me an audience of readers, and um, you know, it's still in print and still sells well.

And you know, and I wrote it in a car.

You know, our kids were little, and I was working, you know, at five campuses teaching courses, and I was a self-employed carpenter, and you know, I wrote 15 to 17 minutes a day in a parked car in a graveyard.

Franklin: 15 To 17!

Dubus: Yeah, 17 was the sweet spot.

I would read a paragraph, write a paragraph, then I'd go, you know, remodel bathrooms, teach at night, come back, get four hours sleep, do it again.

But aft-, and I wrote next to the grave of Hilas T. Wheeler, who died in 1866 at age 33.

You know, I still sometimes will pull my truck up to Hilas' grave and write in my truck.

But after three years -- winter, spring, summer, fall -- I had 22 notebooks filled with that story.

It took six months to type it up, six months to revise it, and then it went to 24 publishers over three years.

And then it became huge and changed everything for me and my little family.

So, I'm very grateful for it.

But you talked about how, how things can just change just like that for us.

And all it takes is a sickness, an illness, lose your job -- both.

Um, a divorce.

And these things are, they happen to all of us at various times.

And my latest novel is called "Such Kindness," and it's from the point of view of a man who loses everything.

He, he's a carpenter, he's a builder.

He falls off a roof, he gets addicted to pain pills, he loses his house, he loses his marriage, he's estranged from his son.

And that's how that cheerful little novel begins.

But I find over the years, Marcia, that I tend to be -- I think it's important for a writer to trust what he or she is curious about.

And I think that in that, within that curiosity, being pulled to the subject, is something deeper going on in the writer that has to be addressed.

And, and so I follow those.

I just follow those.

And um, I always identify with the homeless person on the street.

I always identify with the bartender, not the, not the table I'm sitting at.

On and on.

The woman cleaning my room.

And one of the things I value the most about the kind of creative writing that I prefer to read is, is one that's rooted in compassion.

Which of course comes from the Latin, means "to suffer with."

79 to 80% of Americans have $400 or less in the bank in case of emergency.

$400.

Now I grew up with a mother who didn't have $40.

But 400 dollars, that doesn't pay anyone's rent.

For one month.

Almost 80% of us.

This, this has to be addressed.

Franklin: In "Such Kindness," you, you write about a man who is in intense chronic pain.

Your father, you have had pain.

Dubus: Yeah, yeah, my brother.

Franklin: Your brother.

Really, yeah, it comes through.

Everything that he does is infused with having to ignore it, overcome it.

And yet he does.

The character realizes that he, if he just reaches out, if he just asks for help, and he accepts help… Dubus: Yeah.

Yeah.

And that surprised me.

I did not know he was going to go where he went.

You know, in the beginning of the novel, he's full of bitterness and physical pain and emotional pain and resentment, and especially against Big Pharma, banks and insurance.

And, and I thought, "Is her going to take his loan officer hostage in his own house?

Franklin: I wondered that, too.

Dubus: Yeah.

And then Tom Lowe, the character, says, "No, Andre, I'm not going to be in one of your depressing, violent novels.

I'm going over here."

And that again, that's one of the thrills of writing fiction and nonfiction is the surprise.

Is you dig down and, "Oh."

Again, this uncovering.

Willie Cather says, "Artistic growth is, if nothing else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness."

Isn't that beautiful?

Franklin: You and Richard Ford, whom I've interviewed, remember, have steel trap minds for more quotes than anyone I have ever met.

Dubus: Well, my wife says, "You know, you have no wisdom of your own, it's just like a Rolodex of other people's…" I said, "Honey, it's called 'attribution.'"

(Laughter.)

Well, I'm a fan of Richard Ford, so thank you.

Franklin: Yeah, he was able to just roll those off, too.

It's quite amazing, uh.

Back to "House of Sand and Fog," do you think you could even write that book today with all of the attention that's paid to whether you need to be of a culture to write about it?

Dubus: I'm so, I'm so glad you're bringing this up.

Um, I could write it, but I don't think I could publish it.

I'm a white man.

"Who are you to write from the point of view of an Iranian man?

You're not Iranian."

We live in such a bizarrely fundamentalist time in that way.

There's an essay by Rosellen Brown, which I love, years, 40 years old.

She said, "Look, it's not an act of colonialism or imperialism or racism if I'm trying to put myself in your shoes."

If I'm trying to write, say from the point of view of a person of color, and I'm a white person.

She says, "It's an act of friendship."

And, and the risk is I'll get it all wrong, I'll fall flat on my face, and you have every right to tell me.

But I have a right to try.

Um, that's my view.

We, we all have a right to try.

We must try.

Because also, let's go back to Whitman.

You know, we are all multitudes.

I'm not just a white guy sitting here.

There are all sorts of beings in me.

There are all sorts of beings in you.

And I'm convinced we come from other lives and we're going to go to ones beyond this one.

I mean, I have found more of myself writing from the point of view of women over the years in fiction than writing from the point of view of a man or even writing an essay about a younger me.

Um, I found a lot of myself in that colonel.

I've never, I'll never be Iranian.

I've never been in the military.

So, it's a small-minded way of looking at human beings.

Now, let me back up.

The impulse to say, "Stay in your lane" comes from a very beautiful place, and that's one of compassion.

Rage against, you know, genocide, racism, imperialism, colonialism, rape, on and on.

It's, it's outrage for the right reasons.

Franklin: Well, and I think… Dubus: The corrective measure is wrong.

Franklin: Yeah.

Sorry, go on.

Dubus: That's all.

The corrective measure is wrong.

Franklin: Yeah, and I think some of it also came from wanting to give people of color more of a place at the table.

Dubus: Amen.

Amen.

Franklin: With you know, writing.

Dubus: And so the issue is more with the way publishing is, not the private desk of the writer.

You know, publishing is still 70% white.

That needs to change.

And so that's a valid argument, for sure.

Franklin: Well, what's your sense about the role right now of writing?

Dubus: The job of the writer is to go there, no matter where there is.

But in general, I've seen writers take fewer risks.

They are not as brave on the page.

And I'm convinced it has to do with social media, especially with the younger people.

Um, I'm looking over my shoulder for follows, likes and comments, and I don't want to get canceled.

So everyone's being very careful about, you know, how people are being portrayed.

And look, I think the truth does set us free.

If you've got a character who's a racist son of a b**ch, he better talk like one.

This isn't about being polite, it's not about being appropriate.

It's not a first date where you're trying to be attractive.

You know, I can't tell you how many margins, how many manuscripts I write in the margins, "Don't entertain me.

You're trying too hard to entertain me.

I don't need comic relief right now.

I need the truth.

Is that really what she said?

I just feel like you want to…give me a break."

I know that social media is not all bad.

But I think it has made everyone the curator of the Museum of Me; it's made everybody toxically self-conscious and solipsistic.

And, um, I think we're here to look outward.

But by looking outward, we're looking inward because we're all one and we all share everything.

We all suffer.

We all love.

We all need love.

We need to be respected.

We need to make a living.

We need food, shelter, clothing.

But it's all about love.

For me it just always comes back to love.

I think that's why we're here.

I think we're here to find out what it is we need to do to live an authentic life.

We only get one, this time around.

And we're supposed to learn how to love and be loved.

Every semester I get a young person writing a piece that moves me to tears and is already art.

And I just encourage him, her or them to keep doing it.

Um, stories will never die.

We can't live without them.

We can't.

Franklin: As we, as we end here, I know that you have a, a, a habit, if you will, or a go-to.

You read a poem every day, don't you?

Dubus: Sometimes five.

Franklin: Did you, did you read anything today that you would like to share with us?

Did you read a poem today?

Dubus: I did.

I read a poem by the wonderful Brian Turner from his new book called "The Goodbye World Poem."

It's a long poem, so I can't share it, but I can share a short one by William Stafford.

Franklin: Oh, one of my favorite poems, poets of all time.

Dubus: Do you know the poem, "Yes?"

Franklin: Yes.

I mean, "Yes."

Dubus: Can I recite it?

It's short.

Franklin: Yes, of course.

Dubus: "It could happen at any time, tornado, earthquake, Armageddon.

It could happen.

Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know.

That is why we wake and look out — no guarantees in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning, like right now, like noon, like evening."

Franklin: Well, this was a bonus for me.

Dubus: Me, too.

Franklin: Thank you so much.

Dubus: Thank you, Marcia.

Franklin: I enjoyed our conversation so much.

Dubus: Me, too, immensely.

Franklin: Thank you.

Dubus: Thank you for being such a good interviewer.

Franklin: You've been listening to author Andre Dubus III.

Our conversation was taped at the 2025 Sun Valley Writers' Conference.

My thanks to conference organizers for all their help and for inviting us back for our 18th season at the renowned event.

We've been conducting interviews there since 2005.

If you'd like to watch any of the more than 80 conversations, you can stream them for free on Idaho Public Television's YouTube channel.

For Idaho Public Television, I'm Marcia Franklin.

Thanks for tuning in.

(Music) Major funding is provided by the Idaho Public Television Endowment and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.