In the following critical assessment of Dubus's short stories published between 1977 to 1985, Yarbrough asserts that Dubus's fiction-writing talents are best showcased in his longer short stories.

Kennedy is an American author and critic whose Andre Dubus: A Study of the Short Fiction was published in 1988. In the following essay, Kennedy traces the theme of progressing from solitude to love in three of Dubus's novellas.

Kennedy is an American author, educator, and critic. In the following excerpt of an interview originally published in the February 1987 issue of Delta and based on conversations and correspondence between Kennedy and Dubus during an eighteen-month period of time in the mid-1980s, Dubus discusses his characters, his works, and the writing process.

Breslin is an American author, educator, and Roman Catholic clergyman. In the following essay, he examines the influence of Catholicism on Dubus's fictional exploration of human relationships.

In the following excerpt, Feeney comments on the breadth of biographical, psychological, and social circumstances which have influenced Dubus's fiction.

Lyons is an American author and critic. In the following review, he describes the stories in Separate Flights as snapshots of late twentieth-century American life and asserts that Dubus's fiction is characterized by finely crafted characters and believable circumstances.

In the following interview, which took place prior to his debilitating automobile accident, Dubus discusses literary and religious influences on his work.

In the following review of Selected Stories, Hoffman suggests that everyday objects, circumstances, and relationships transcend the ordinary in Dubus's fictional explorations of love and its corruption.

Bausch is an American novelist and short story writer. In the following review, he applauds Dubus's return to short story writing and asserts that Dancing After Hours demonstrates the author's talent in the genre.

Tyler is an American novelist, short story writer, and critic. In the following review of Selected Stories, she characterizes the collection as "deeply rewarding" and Dubus as a writer who assumes moral responsibility for his characters.

In the following excerpt, Lesser discusses the depth of characterization in Dubus's Selected Stories.

In the following excerpt, Perez offers a critical overview of Finding a Girl in America, suggesting that Dubus's stories provide a believable context for the dramatization of significant moral issues.

Eder is an American critic and journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1987. In the following review of Selected Stories, he suggests that Dubus's fiction is sometimes marred by excessive writing.

In the following review, Hummel discusses Dubus's tendency to focus on life's daily battles instead of its more dramatic moments in Broken Vessels.

In the following review, Toolan discusses Dubus's ability to turn poetry into revelation in Broken Vessels.

Lehmann-Haupt is the New York Times's book critic. In the following review, he explores the various ways in which Dubus applies the element of fear in the stories of Dancing After Hours.

In the following review, Kriegel comments on the intensity of feeling and honesty found in Dubus's collection of personal essays, Broken Vessels.

In the following review, Sullivan traces some of the common elements of Dubus's short fiction that appear in The Last Worthless Evening.

In the following review of Selected Stories, Baveystock characterizes Dubus's fictional treatment of human conflict and crisis as psychological in origin and execution and suggests that the longer works are most reflective of the author's considerable insight and perception.

In the following review, Lesser observes that in The Last Worthless Evening, Dubus goes beyond the geographic and thematic boundaries that evolved in his previous fiction to explore wider social issues and that the length and pacing of a novella is uniquely suited to Dubus's style.

Shechner is a professor of English at the State University of New York in Buffalo. In the following review, he argues that Dancing After Hours "might just as well have been titled 'Tough Love' for what its characters endure in almost every story."

In the following review, Gray praises Dubus's skill as a short story writer and calls "Rose" a "classic American story."

Broyard was an American author and critic. In the following review, he suggests that the title story of Adultery, and Other Choices is most reflective of Dubus's talent for storytelling.

Pritchard is an American author and critic. In the following excerpt, he calls Dubus's portrayal of the everyday lives and secret agonies of ordinary people perceptive and realistic.

Sigal is an American novelist and educator. In the following review, he analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of The Last Worthless Evening, pointing out Dubus's sympathy for his characters.

In the following review of The Last Worthless Evening, Seidenbaum asserts that Dubus's stories and novellas are detailed reflections of everyday life rather than purely fictional creations.

[Andre Dubus] is a southerner who almost never writes about the South. Most of the stories in Separate Flights take place in New England or the Middle West, and on a superficial level they have a great deal in common with the work of [Alan] Sillitoe, for they are filled with images and acts of sex. Dubus is good with quick strokes, slight details that bring whole sequences into focus…. Minor characters, people seen briefly in bars or at filling stations, give Dubus's work an enhanced sense of ...

It would not be inaccurate to call Andre Dubus an old-fashioned writer, for … he writes plotted stories about recognizable human beings in a language that, however highly polished, is nonetheless the English that you and I speak. Dubus is good at it—so good, in fact, that if the seven short stories and the novella that make up Separate Flights are your introduction to his work, as they were for me, you're apt to wonder where he's been hiding. He hasn't, of course—no...

[Separate Flights] consists of a novella and seven short stories, each of which is a considerable achievement. Dubus's attentiveness to his craft and his deep commitment to his characters make the experience of reading these tales—which are almost without exception about lonely, pitiful people—a highly rewarding pleasure. The author of a novel, The Lieutenant, published in 1967, Dubus writes in a vein that might be considered naturalistic, since he relies to a great extent upon charting...

In the following review, the critic notes that in the stories in Dancing After Hours Dubus continues the themes of his earlier work but adds a new element as a result of his accident that makes "The Colonel's Wife" and the title story especially resonant.

In the following review, Lynch observes that Dubus "expresses some of life's important truths" through the characters of Dancing After Hours.

Andre Dubus is a skillful and temperate writer. [Adultery and Other Stories] takes some getting used to. As when a harpsichordist opens his recital with sounds that seem unbearably faint after the noise outside, Dubus invites us into a world of quiet melodies. Gradually the ear learns to hear them. When Dubus writes about growing up in Louisiana, he finds nothing of the Southern Gothic. These fine stories are the equivalent of Hopper landscapes, anywhere in small-town America…. People play golf, go t...

I have a candidate [for "Most Underrated Writer of 1975"], a man who published a book this year to the merest flutter of applause, and deserved much more: Andre Dubus…. Dubus writes in an almost painfully unmodish way. He lacks tricks of style. He does not have a head full of helpful sociological constructs about his world. He is not a particularly close observer of trends in manners or speech. But he knows things. [The stories in Separate Flights] are mostly about spent and misspent lo...