Brendan DuBois
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Londonderry High School in Londonderry, New Hampshire
I. Biography
Brendan DuBois grew up in the coastal town of Dover, New Hampshire. He is one of six boys. DuBois, frequently visiting the Dover Public Library, always took out the four-book limit each week. He loved to read. DuBois attended both St. Mary's Academy and St. Thomas Aquinas High School and then went on to graduate from the University of New Hampshire with a B.A. in English. While at UNH, DuBois wrote for the school newspaper.
II. Professional Life
Before becoming a full-time author, DuBois was a newspaper reporter for three years and a technical writer and editor for fourteen years.
DuBois' short stories have been exceptionally popular. Nearly forty of his short stories have been published in distinguished magazines such as: Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Playboy, and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. His stories have also been included in anthologies such as the 1988, 90, 92, and 95 editions of The Year's Best Mystery & Suspense Stories, the 1995 and 1997 editions of Year's 25 Best Mystery Short Stories, and the 1997 edition of Best American Mystery Stories.
DuBois' stories have also been nominated for several awards. In 1997, one of his short stories was nominated for the Anthony Award for Best Mystery Short Story of the Year. DuBois has been nominated three times for the Edgar Allan Poe Award, given out by the famous Mystery Writers of America. One of his notable pieces, "The Necessary Brother," won the Shamus Award for Best Short Story of the Year in 1995 from the Private Eye Writers of America.
The first of DuBois' published novels were part of his Lewis Cole series. The first two, Dead Sand and Black Tide, were published by Otto Penzler Books. By the time DuBois sought to have his third addition to the series published, Otto Penzler Books no longer existed. Due to a corporate media takeover, the publisher had vanished. After a year of rejections, DuBois still could not find another publisher that would buy his novel.
Still, DuBois began another novel. This novel is not part of the Lewis Cole series. This novel, DuBois's claim to fame, is an alternative history book with a suspenseful plot. After a year and a half of grueling research and writing, DuBois finished Resurrection Day and Penguin Putnam published it in June of 1999.
In the meantime, DuBois, now living in Exeter, New Hampshire, got his third Lewis Cole Mystery, Shattered Shell, published by St. Martin's Press in March of 1999.
III. Influences
DuBois has always enjoyed reading suspense-thriller novels. Alternative history novels have also been part of his reading literature. Alternative histories that Dubois has specifically noted are The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, SS-GB by Len Deighton, and Robert Harris's Fatherland. His love for these novels, along with the thirtieth anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, inspired him to begin the ambitious novel, Resurrection Day.
IV. Resurrection Day
Resurrection Day is DuBois's most notable novel yet. The novel is an alternative history that takes place ten years after the Cuban Missile Crisis turned into a nuclear war that destroyed the United States and decimated Russia.
The most important question DuBois used while writing this thriller was "What if?" Dubois notes in an interview posted on the Resurrection Day website that: "Those two words are the basic tools for most writers." The author also used more specific questions such as: "What if the Cuban Missile Crisis had erupted into World War III? What would be different? What would the world be like? How would things have changed?" To answer these questions, DuBois spent much of the one and half years it took to write this novel doing research.
Resurrection Day has been compared to other great alternative history novels. The Publishers Weekly review, which can be seen along with other reviews on the Resurrection Day website, describes the novel as being "brilliant…An alternate history thriller that deserves to be as popular as Robert Harris's Fatherland." Dubois shouldn't have any more problems selling his novels with reviews like that!
V. Works by DuBois Novels Short Stories VI. How to Contact DuBois and DuBois on the Web
Black Tide (1995)
Shattered Shell (1999)
Resurrection Day (1999)
"The Necessary Brother" (1995)
DuBois's E-mail: BADuBois@resurrectionday.com
Publisher's Wesite - Penguin-Putnam
Publisher's mailing address: VII. Bibliography
Dubois, Brendan. "Fellow New Hampshirite." 12 January 2001. Online. Personal E-mail. Available Fiorda, Jamie. "Resurrection Day." 1999. Online. Internet. This essay was submitted by a student of Elizabeth H. Juster, a teacher at Londonderry High School in Londonderry, New Hampshire.
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