VJ Books Presents Author David Rabe!
 David Rabe was born in1940, in Dubuque, Iowa, son to William and Ruth McCormick Rabe. His father was a high-school teacher who eventually left teaching to take a job at a meatpacking plant shipping dock, while his mother contributed to the family income by working in a department store. Through their efforts, David was able to attend two Catholic schools in his home town, Loras Academy and Loras College, where, in 1962, he earned a B.A. degree in English.
Graduating from college, Rabe found odd jobs, briefly working as an egg carrier, bellhop, parking-lot attendant, and substitute teacher, but he soon started work on a graduate degree in theater at Villanova University. He dropped out of the program before completing his degree, however, and, in 1965, was drafted into the Army. He spent the next year on a tour of duty in Vietnam, which profoundly affected his subsequent career as a writer. Although he was assigned to a hospital group and was not directly engaged in combat, he was greatly disturbed by the sacrifice of young Americans in what increasingly seemed to be a pointless war.
David Rabe has been hailed as one of America's greatest living playwrights. He is the author of many widely performed plays, including The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel, Sticks and Bones, In the Boom Boom Room, Streamers, Hurlyburly, and The Dog Problem. Four of his plays have been nominated for the Tony Award, including one win for Best Play. He is the recipient of an Obie Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, Drama Desk Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, among others. His numerous screenwriting credits include I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can, Casualties of War, Hurlyburly, and The Firm.
Rabe is the critically acclaimed author of the novels Dinosaurs on the Roof and Recital of the Dog, and a collection of short stories, A Primitive Heart. Partially written upon his return from the war, his most recent novel Girl by the Road at Night is his first work of fiction set in Vietnam„a spare and poetic narrative about a young soldier embarking on a tour of duty and the Vietnamese prostitute he meets. Raabe lives with his family in Northwest Connecticut.
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