Background
Stuart, Dabney was born on November 4, 1937 in Richmond, Virginia, United States. Son of Walker Dabney Junior and Martha (vonSchilling) Stuart.
( She was not there anymore. She was dead. He had made th...)
She was not there anymore. She was dead. He had made the mistake of reaching out for her the third time he had seen the coordinates of her presence, but all he had touched was air. He had fallen to his knees in the upstairs hall, thinking absurdly that this giving and taking away must have been what made men believe in angels once. The gust of a sob had racked him. Its force had thrown him forward onto his hands, and he remained like that, breathless, a mongrel brought to heel. . . . For the first and only time in his life, he had wished to die. In No Visible Means of Support, Dabney Stuart's stories turn within themselves like trapeze artists passing each other in midair. Stuart works without a net, using anagrams, iconographic details, and dreams to imply connections and resolutions, only to shift focus and veer off into new configurations. This collection is complex yet direct, funny yet profound, emotional yet clever. Despite all their narrative sophistication, these stories always concern themselves with basic human predicaments: the sorrow of loss, the mysteries of creation, the persistence and resilience of the spirit. The first two stories evoke mystery, resembling spy and detective fiction. In "Loose Ends," the focus figure is a middle-aged courier whose simple curiosity gets the better of him, and turns his life upside down. "One Good Turn" depicts an old man whose past almost overwhelms him. "The Egg Lady" presents a successful writer who gets a sort of comeuppance in a small town when he underestimates those around him. All of the stories are concerned with fate and destiny; each indirectly comments upon the others. While each story connects on different levels with the others, none of them presents an easy way out of the difficulties that compose these fictional worlds. A storytelling master, Dabney Stuart threads the implicit sources of help for his characters into their intriguing, earthbound lives.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826213200/?tag=2022091-20
( In the title story of Dabney Stuart's second collection...)
In the title story of Dabney Stuart's second collection of short fiction, Mark Random—grown from the childhood and adolescent complexities of Sweet Lucy Wine into his own fatherhood—seeks both to remember and to create his father, Seth. His search moves backward and forward in time, weaving memories of his own children toward the focusing experience with Seth that concludes the story. "There seemed in the uniformity of their routines something established long before they were born to their parts in it, a compromise, almost instinctive, with forces too immense and subtly intertwined to be faced head on." Stuart uses a sequence of scenes--fishing trips, gathering for meals, moments of solitary musing--to give context to and complement formally these tentative evocations. The sense of ceremony, of revelations and release, that the narration seeks in The Way to Cobbs Creek extends into the other stories. They involve three characters—all black—who are apparently peripheral in the longer fiction, but who turn out to be instrumental in Mark's life, perhaps even more influential in primary ways than his relatives. Willie Parole, Mariah Advent, and Delia Walker each realize moments of personal discovery in terms of their particular engagements with crises, and opportunities.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826211437/?tag=2022091-20
( In Second Sight Dabney Stuart accompanies reproductions...)
In Second Sight Dabney Stuart accompanies reproductions of the unique paintings of Carroll Cloar with poems that seek to see his work verbally. The poems are strikingly visual, fostering an interdependence between the two art forms and giving a voice to Cloar's distinctive images. Together, the paintings and poems explore the unpredictable, quirky beauty one can find in ordinary life. They also suggest the complex, affectionate ways the imagination can mediate the distance between the human and the natural worlds.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082621018X/?tag=2022091-20
Stuart, Dabney was born on November 4, 1937 in Richmond, Virginia, United States. Son of Walker Dabney Junior and Martha (vonSchilling) Stuart.
AB, Davidson College, 1960. AM, Harvard University, 1962.
Instructor College William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1961-1965. Professor English Washington and Lee University, Lexington, 1965—2002, S. Blount Mason Junior professor English, 1991—2002. Visiting professor Middlebury (Vermont) College, 1968-1969, Ohio University, Athens, 1975, University Virginia, Charlottesville, 1981-1983.
( In the title story of Dabney Stuart's second collection...)
( In Second Sight Dabney Stuart accompanies reproductions...)
(used ex library in mylar; no card pocket; ifp is torn in ...)
( She was not there anymore. She was dead. He had made th...)
(Book by Stuart, Dabney)
(Book by Stuart, Dabney)
(Book by Stuart, Dabney)
Married Sandra Westcott, January 20, 1983. Children: Martha, Nathan vonSchilling, Darren Wynne.