BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF “HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG” (1999)
TO DISCUSS HIS NEW NOVEL “THE GARDEN OF LAST DAYS”

NYS Writers Institute, September 16, 2008
4:15 p.m. Seminar | Standish Room, Science Library
8:00 p.m. Reading | Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center

CALENDAR LISTING
Andre Dubus III, author of the major bestseller “House of Sand and Fog” (1999), an Oprah Book Club selection and National Book Award finalist, will read from and discuss “The Garden of Last Days” (2008), his new novel of fate and tragedy set inside a Florida strip club, on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. in the Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center, on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. Earlier that same day at 4:15 p.m. the author will present an informal seminar in the Standish Room, Science Library on the uptown campus. The events are sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and are free and open to the public.

PROFILE
Andre Dubus III, fiction writer, is the author of the major international bestselling novel, “House of Sand and Fog”(1999), the explosive story of two people battling for ownership of a California home:  an Iranian immigrant who purchases it at auction, and a recovering drug addict who loses her title for nonpayment of back taxes. An Oprah Book Club selection and National Book Award finalist, the book was adapted as a Dream Works Studios motion picture in 2003. The reviewer for the “San Diego Union Tribune”called it, “A smart, raw study in the clash of cultures.... an utterly believable, riveting journey.” Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer Robert Olen Butler called it, “a compelling and important book.”

Dubus’s newest novel is “The Garden of Last Days”(2008), the story of a Florida mother who— for want of a babysitter— makes the mistake of bringing her 3-year-old daughter to the strip club where she works. The Puma Club for Men serves as a watering hole for an assortment of desperados including A.J., a man with a violence problem and a grievance against the club, and Bassam, a young Saudi terrorist seeking to understand the mysteries of women prior to his own martyrdom on 9/11.

“Kirkus Reviews”said that Dubus “does a masterful job” as he “explores intricacies of faith and fate [and] love in its many dimensions.... Difficult to put down, impossible to forget.” Writing in “Entertainment Weekly”in May of this year,Stephen King called it, “the best book I read this winter, which is almost certainly going to become the book everyone is reading and talking about this summer.” King added, “The people who populate Dubus’ ‘Garden’ feel like real people, full of genuine grief, anger, hope, love, spirituality, and terror. They rise from the page.”

Dubus’s other books include “The Cage Keeper and Other Stories”(1989), and “Bluesman”(1993). His short stories have received the Pushcart Prize and the National Magazine Award for Fiction, and have been anthologized in “The One Hundred Most Distinguished Stories of 1993” and “The Best American Short Stories of 1994.” He was also named a finalist for the Prix de Rome of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1994.

NOTE:  The film adaptation of “House of Sand and Fog” (United States, 2003, 126 minutes, color, 35 mm, directed by Vadim Perelman) will be screened in advance of the author’s visit on Friday, September 12, 2008 at 7:30 p.m. in Page Hall on the University at Albany’s downtown campus.

Online Magazine Article:
Andre Dubus Introduction by Langdon Brown