What do You think about Dubin's Lives (2003)?
Marvelous! I'd read The Tenant years ago and it remains one of my all time favorite books today. This, however, is very different in tone and style, but I felt just as fascinated by its main character, William Dubin as I did with Harry Lesser. Malamud is so amazing at letting us know how others feel even through third-person limited narration, and his secondary characters live and breathe outside of their scenes until we meet them again on the page. In this case, even the subjects of Dubin's work, (he is a biographer of Thoreau and D.H. Lawrence) became characters in the story. Though Malamud could have stuffed this novel full of details about Dubin's subjects to impress the reader with his knowledge, he chose to reveal only the facts which in turn reveal Dubin's nature. But the strongest point of this story has to be Dubin's quest for love and Malamud's deep understand of marriage, family relations, and growing older.I loved this.
—Mel Bossa
At tmes there is almost a sensory pleasure to be derived from Malamud's skill in style, detail and story line. In the end, though, it is a well-told story of a selfish, nearly solipsistic life, in a mode very specific (I think) to late-middle-aged males. Every decision Dubin makes s for himself, in his own interests, and as the novel goes on, he even turns the decisions and choices of others into nothing more than a means of justifying his own choices and decisions.The book offers much to think about in terms of personal relationshops, Dubin with his wife, his mistress, his casual flings, his daughter and step-son, his friends. I often found myself thinking, "Why is he acting this way at this particular time?" One eventually figures out what a life would look like when it has become unmoored from any consideration outside of itself.
—Chuck Lowry
