Townie

After his father and namesake (the famed short story writer Andre Dubus) leaves the family, Andre Dubus III and his siblings are largely left to fend for themselves in a working-class Massachusetts in the 1970s. As the oft-bullied Andre learns to fight back, he becomes increasingly aware of the rift between his father’s academic bubble and his own hardscrabble surroundings and feels alternately drawn to and repulsed by both.

Having a legacy of a literary lion thrust upon you isn’t easy, and for the younger Dubus (author of The House of Sand and Fog), the violence, drug abuse, and isolation that informed his adolescence must have made for quite the bumpy ride. Despite that, his retelling of it avoids wallowing in self-pity. It is sincere and earnest without buckling under its own emotional weight.

Townie’s works best as a sketch of person and place. The bleak provincialism of Haverhill comes across clearly here as does the liberating openness of Bradford College (whether the elder Dubus teaches and the younger briefly attends). Young Andre’s gradual transformation from put-upon weakling to hot-headed brawler to, almost improbably, a writer in his own right is traced in parallel to his evolving relationship with his father. The elder Dubus comes across as a very complicated and contradictory individual: a habitual philanderer who regularly attended Mass, a gun-toting former Marine officer who embraced the counterculture, a man absent much paternal capacity who nevertheless cared about his family. By contrast, the author’s mother is given short shrift here. We see her as a hard-working woman facing difficult choices, but she only seems to creep around the edge of the narrative. She never once takes center stage.

The biggest mark against Townie is its repetitiveness. Instead of showing a time he was picked on or beaten or robbed, Dubus shows us seemingly every such instance. Similarly, while it makes sense to show us a fight he sought after putting on muscle, he walks us through countless fisticuffs and near-brawls. This, coupled with his insistence on sprinkling in superfluous physical description for minor characters, causes the book to feel bloated. As a stylist, Dubus does not lack craftsmanship, but perhaps owing to the highly personal story he is sharing, he does lack restraint.

Though some stronger editing may have elevated it from solid to superior, Townie is still worth a look if for no other reason than because it shows how even the dimmest of circumstances do not preclude change.

7.5/10