Ghost Dogs: On Killers and Kin

During childhood summers in Louisiana, Andre Dubus’s grandfather taught him that men’s work is hard. Ever after, whether tracking down a drug lord in Mexico as a bounty hunter or grappling with privilege while living with a rich girlfriend in New York City, Dubus worked—at being a better worker and a better human being. In his longest essay, “If I Owned a Gun”, he reflects on the empowerment and shame he felt in keeping a gun and his decision, ultimately, to give it up. Elsewhere, he writes of violent youth and of settled domesticity and fatherhood; about the omnipresent expectations and contradictions of masculinity; about the things writers remember and those they forget. In conversation with writers and thinkers from Rilke to Rumi to Tim O’Brien, Ghost Dogs renders moments of personal revelation with emotional generosity and stylistic grace, ultimately standing as essential witness and testimony to the art of nonfiction.