After their parents divorced in the 1970s, Andre Dubus III and his three siblings grew up with their overworked mother in a depressed Massachusetts mill town saturated with drugs and everyday violence. Nearby, his father, an eminent author, taught on a college campus and took the kids out on Sundays. The clash between town and gown, between the hard drinking, drugging, and fighting of “townies” … “townies” and the ambitions of students debating books and ideas, couldn’t have been more stark. In this unforgettable memoir, acclaimed novelist Dubus shows us how he escaped the cycle of violence and found empathy in channeling the stories of others–bridging, in the process, the rift between his father and himself.
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This is a great book for all of us who grew up in blue collar towns surrounded by the shadow of violence and poverty, disfunctional families. Yet intelligent to know we could be better , smarter loyal and strong. Andre shows the cycle can be broken. His honesty is heart rending.
I know the area well where the story took place so it was very informative and entertaining.
This true story is engrossing and very good.
An autobiography about growing up poor in various suburbs in and around Boston. Enjoyed reading about the various characters in the authors life. Andre Dubus 111, placed me right along side his adventures. His observations of the life around him are quite descriptive, sometimes funny and sometimes sad.
Amazing what an awful childhood a man who’s father is so self absorbed that he has total ignorance of the life of the wife and children he left had to endure, but they don’t seem to hate him. One son as an adult becomes, as is his father, a writer, professor, father except he’s a man who loves with his whole heart and without bitterness.
Though a good writer, this author exhausts the reader with hundreds of pages of barroom brawls. I couldn’t finish it. Kept wanting to read about a turn of events that would signal a change in this guy for the better, but just couldn’t stick with it long enough. I did enjoy House of Sand and Fog so he must have eventually stpped fighting and …
A great book written honestly by a great writer..
Growing up in SE Massachusetts, depressed mill town, similar to Dubus’s experience along the Merrimack, close to author’s age, just a haunting memoir for me to read – I just recommended to a friend!
Dubus III was already an acclaimed novelist by the time this memoir hit the stands in 2011, but this is arguably his best work. Dubus III recounts his experiences growing up in Haverhill, Massachusetts in the 1970s. After his father — the award-winning essayist Andre Dubus II — leaves home for another woman, the rest of the family falls into …