On the Invisible Palm of God

＂Renders with grace and tenderness the often unconscious need and yearning a young person has for an authentic teacher... a beautiful and deeply moving memoir.＂ Andre Dubus III

In his undergraduate years, Joseph Hurka’s mentor was the writer Andre Dubus, a great, large spirit of a man, today considered a twentieth-century master of the short story. Dubus opened new artistic doors for the young Hurka; he sent his student on to the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, where Hurka started his career in earnest as a writer and teacher himself.

In 1986 Dubus, trying to help stranded motorists on a highway outside Boston, survived a traumatic highway accident that left him with thirty-four broken bones and an amputated leg. Hurka did his best, for the remaining twelve years of Dubus’ life, to help as his mentor and friend went through a courageous fight to regain physical strength and to write again.

ON THE INVISIBLE PALM OF GOD is about an enduring friendship, and the hidden resilience of the human spirit that resides within all of us.