SOURCE: "The Lines of Anguish," in Chicago Tribune—Books, March 10, 1996, p. 3.

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."

This latest collection of short stories by Andre Dubus might just as well have been titled "Tough Love" for what its characters endure in almost every story. In one, a young actress, finding herself pregnant just as her career is taking off, chooses an abortion, though her boyfriend begs to raise the child, if need be, on his own. In another, a veteran of casual romances finally picks a man to settle down with, and, after their first lovemaking, launches into a delirious monologue about marital violence, disclosing a terror of intimacy.

There's a...