Last Worthless Evening

The four novellas and two stories in this collection all demonstrate Dubus's belief in the inherent nobility of the individual, the possibility of taking good, moral action on a small scale. And in each, the immediacy and strength of his writing renders the small universal; the reader is drawn into the situations Dubus creates so completely that for the moment, no other world seems to exist. In the thoughtful ""Deaths at Sea,'' a naval officer writes a series of letters home to his wife about his black bunkmate, Willie, and about the burden of responsibility he, as a white Southerner, has always felt for the oppression of blacks. ``Rose,'' every bit as compelling, is the story a woman tells to her bar partner about her silent complicity in her husband's abuse of their children. In all of the narratives, the human, and humanitarian, spirit triumphs over what can only be called the forces of darkness. Moral struggle comes as naturally to these people as good writing does to Dubus (whose last book was Voices from the Moon. His words and characterizations are infallibly right, yet he never abandons good storytelling in his desire to make a point. The majesty of these pieces remains long after the reader closes the book. (November 25)