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Andre Dubus III

Townie: A Memoir Hardcover – February 28, 2011

by Andre Dubus III (Author)

334 ratings

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Won Book of the Year Adult Non-Fiction―2012 Indie Choice Awards
Amazon Best Book of the Month February 2011

An acclaimed novelist reflects on his violent past and a lifestyle that threatened to destroy him―until he was saved by writing.

After their parents divorced in the 1970s, Andre Dubus III and his three siblings grew up with their exhausted working mother in a depressed Massachusetts mill town saturated with drugs and everyday violence. To protect himself and those he loved, Andre started pumping iron and learned to use his fists so well that he became the kind of man who could send others to the hospital with one punch, and did. Irresistibly drawn to stand up for the underdog, he was on a fast track to getting killed―or killing someone else.

Nearby, his father, an eminent author, taught on a college campus and took the kids out on Sundays. The clash of worlds between town and gown, between the hard drinking, drugging, and fighting of “townies” and the ambitions of well-fed students debating books and ideas, couldn’t have been more stark or more difficult for a son to communicate to a father. Only by finally putting pen to paper himself did young Andre come into his own, discovering the power of empathy in channeling the stories of others―and ultimately bridging the rift between his father and himself.

An unforgettable book, Townie is a riveting and profound meditation on physical violence and the failures and triumphs of love.

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

February 28, 2011
Dimensions

9.5 x 6.5 x 1.25 inches
ISBN-10

0393064662
ISBN-13

978-1203026219
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, February 2011: Rarely has the process of becoming a writer seemed as organic and--dare I say it--moral as it does in Andre Dubus III's clear-eyed and compassionate memoir, Townie. You might think that following his father's trade would have been natural and even obvious for the son and namesake of Andre Dubus, one of the most admired short story writers of his time, but it was anything but. His father left when he was 10, and as his mother worked long hours to keep them fed, her four children mostly raised themselves, stumbling through house parties and street fights in their Massachusetts mill town, so cut off from the larger world that when someone mentioned "Manhattan" when Andre was in college he didn't know what they were talking about. What he did know, and what he recalls with detailed intensity, were the battles in bars and front yards, brutal to men and women alike, that first gave him discipline, as he built himself from a fearful kid into a first-punch, hair-trigger bruiser, and then empathy, as, miraculously, he pulled himself back from the violence that threatened to define him. And it was out of that empathy that, wanting to understand the stories of the victims of brutality as well as those whose pain drove them to dish it out, he began to write, reconciling with his father and eventually giving us novels like House of Sand and Fog and now this powerful and big-hearted memoir. --Tom Nissley

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Long before he became the highly acclaimed author of House of Sand and Fog, Dubus shuffled and punched his way through a childhood and youth full of dysfunction, desperation, and determination. Just after he turned 12, Dubus's family fell rapidly into shambles after his father--the prominent writer Andre Dubus--not only left his wife for a younger woman but also left the family in distressing poverty on the violent and drug-infested side of their Massachusetts mill town. For a few years, Dubus escaped into drugs, embracing the apathetic "no-way-out" attitude of his friends. After having his bike stolen, being slapped around by some of the town's bullies, and watching his brother and mother humiliated by some of the town's thugs, Dubus started lifting weights at home and boxing at the local gym. Modeling himself on the Walking Tall sheriff, Buford Pusser, Dubus paid back acts of physical violence with physical violence. Ultimately, he decided to take up his pen and write his way up from the bottom and into a new relationship with his father. In this gritty and gripping memoir, Dubus bares his soul in stunning and page-turning prose. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Townie is a resolute story about the forging of a writer in fire and blood and a wrenching journey through the wreckage of New England’s lost factory world during the Vietnam War era. But Dubus wasn’t born into poverty, rage, and violence. His father, an ex–marine officer turned celebrated writer and adored college professor, initially settled his first family in the bucolic countryside. But the marriage failed, “Pop” moved out, and the four kids and their overwhelmed mother plunged into impoverished small-town hell. Dubus, a target for bullies, and his equally complex and resilient siblings were hungry, neglected, and imperiled within a storm of druggy nihilism and bloodlust. Dubus survived by lifting weights and learning to fight, but his unbridled aggression, even on the side of good, exacted a spiritual toll. Although their charismatic father was oblivious to his children’s suffering, he was not unloving, and when an accident left him confined to a wheelchair, their support was profound. Dubus chronicles each traumatic incident and realization in stabbing detail. So chiseled are his dramatic memories, his shocking yet redemptive memoir of self-transformation feels like testimony under oath as well as hard-hammered therapy, coalescing, ultimately, in a generous, penetrating, and cathartic dissection of misery and fury, creativity and forgiveness, responsibility and compassion. --Donna Seaman

Review

"You have to buy Townie."
― The Chronicle of Higher Education

"Starred Review. Dubus chronicles each traumatic incident and realization in stabbing detail. So chiseled are his dramatic memories, his shocking yet redemptive memoir of self-transformation feels like testimony under oath as well as hard-hammered therapy, coalescing, ultimately, in a generous, penetrating, and cathartic dissection of misery and fury, creativity and forgiveness, responsibility and compassion."
― Booklist

"Starred Review. His compassionate memoir abounds with exquisitely rendered scenes of fighting, cheating, drugging, drinking and loving. A striking, eloquent account of growing up poor and of the making of a writer."
― Kirkus Reviews

"[A] harrowing and strange and beautiful book....an important moment in the growing body of Dubus’s work. "
― Boston Globe

"In his memoir Townie, Andre Dubus III bravely claims all of the shadows he grew up under―his famous writer father, his parents’ divorce, his newly single mother’s impoverishment, the rough streets of the many working-class New England towns he called home. Fighting saved him for a while; then he put down his fists and picked up a pen. Lucky him, lucky us."
― Elle

"[Dubus] is such a solid writer, he redeems the genre. He shows that truth can be as honest as fiction."
― Seattle Times

"His ability to describe violence might be unmatched among contemporary writers. He understands the arcane, unspoken vocabulary of how fights start, as well as the bone-crushing details of how they end. But Townie is most memorable for how vulnerable Dubus seems, once he has stripped himself down to the soul for his readers."
― Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Dubus writes compellingly of those trying times. Townie is a poignant coming-of-age story told by a man whose raw determination allowed him to endure a boyhood ruled by violence and emerge talented enough to write about it with brutal honesty."
― Miami Herald

"Townie has all the rich texture, lucid characterization, compelling conflicts and narrative momentum of the best fiction. It renders heartbreaking, violent, tender and sometimes absurdly comic scenes without a trace of narcissism or sentimentality. From first sentence to last, Dubus employs a dispassionate yet urgent voice. It allows him to do justice to his past and to the people who populated it."
― Cleveland Plain-Dealer

"Fans of Dubus’s fiction will thrill to reading his muscular, occasionally lyrical prose rendering his own life."
― Smith Magazine

"In this powerful memoir, Andre Dubus III explores the complicated and intense relationships between siblings, mothers and sons, and fathers and sons. Growing up in hardscrabble old mill towns, Dubus learned to fight and survive and ultimately to find his own glorious voice … as Dubus finds his redemptive place in the world at last."
― Ann Hood, author of The Red Thread

"Whatever it cost Dubus to bare his soul and write this brutally honest and life-affirming memoir, it is an extraordinary gift to his readers."
― Wally Lamb, author of The Hour I First Believed

About the Author

Andre Dubus III is the author of Gone So Long, Dirty Love, Townie, The Garden of Last Days, and House of Sand and Fog (an Oprah’s Book Club pick and a finalist for the National Book Award). He lives with his family north of Boston.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Hardcover edition (February 28, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393064662
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1203026219
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.57 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #603,504 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #17,620 in Memoirs (Books)

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334 ratings

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Andre Dubus III is the author of The Garden of Last Days, House of Sand and Fog (a #1 New York Times bestseller, Oprah’s Book Club pick, and finalist for the National Book Award) and Townie, winner of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. His writing has received many honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Magazine Award, and two Pushcart Prizes. He lives with his family north of Boston.

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PUNCHING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE MEMBRANE

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 20, 2013

Verified Purchase

In the 1960s, the young Dubus's started their lives together like many couples of the times. They were golden, with their intellect, their parties, and the life they were living. They were in love.

But marriage and parenting four children would take their toll, and with the divorce, the children would watch their father walking away, while they were left behind, as many children of divorce are. Their lives would be more impoverished because of the financial strains of living with a single mom. Oftentimes there was not enough food in the house, and sometimes during the long hours that their mother was at work, the kids had to fend for themselves. And what they found to occupy themselves was often something disruptive.

But nearby, the father, Andre Dubus, already a published author, would enjoy the writer's life, while teaching at a nearby college. He had many female companions, some of whom he married. And his time with his children felt like "dating" them, a description he shared with them.

As the oldest son and second child, young Andre would find that living in a series of poor mill towns in Massachusetts would be a kind of training ground for having to fight for what he wanted. And to stave off the bullying that seemed to follow him everywhere. But first he had to work out and develop the muscles he would need.

Much of the story in Townie: A Memoir reveals what that life was like for the young boy, and how he eventually came to change how he looked at fighting; how he eventually learned how to deal with that rage that arose in him. In this excerpt, he shows us what that felt like:

"Ever since I was a boy running from other boys, I'd been making myself into a man who did not flee, a man who planted his feet and waited for that moment when throwing a punch was the only thing to do, waited for that invisible membrane around me to fall away and I'd gather once again the nerve and will to shatter another's. But I had discovered a new membrane now. The one between what we think and what we see, between what we believe and what is."

But it would take many years for young Andre to arrive at this place...and then only after he began writing in his notebooks and channeling his feelings into his writing.

It would also be many years before father and son would develop a better relationship. Toward the end of the story, when Andre had just published the book House of Sand and Fog , the closeness between them would be stronger than ever.

The story was riveting, even though the earliest sections that dealt with the rage and fighting were difficult to get through. The rewards that came in the second half of the book made having to slog through the violence worth it. Recommended for those who relish writer's memoirs, and especially for those who have enjoyed other works by this author. Four stars.

9 people found this helpful

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San Fran Dan

Finding Andre Dubus III

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 21, 2011

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This is a book worth reading. I bought it before all the very favorable national reviews had come out, instead based on a brief capsule review I had read somewhere, so I formed my opinion before all the hoopla had begun. I had never heard of Dubus III nor of Dubus pere'.

The book is neither a classic memoir nor an autobiography. At least one critic has called it a father son love story, which it is not. Instead, Dubus III writes a series of stories or episodes from his life and development, some short, some long, some sentimental (in a good sense), some narrative, all viewed through his eyes. There is much in the book that is sad and tugs at your heart.

It is a story of a boyhood lived after his father deserted his mother when he was 10 and left the family (an older and younger sister and a younger brother) to live in a series of decrepit small houses located in poor and threatening neighborhoods in northern Mass. He feels weak and is subject to bullying. In his teens, he makes a decision to no longer be the victim, and he takes up weight lifting and boxing, soon able and very ready to throw a punch and beat a face into a pulp. Though he sees his father twice monthly for an activity or meal, beneath is the fury toward his father for leaving the family with little money, not enough food, and no guidance.

Through many locales and much hardship and learning, there follows Andre's evolution of intellect and finally writing. He writes jumping from event to event, skipping months and sometimes years. Woven throughout, is the evolution of the father son relationship (which is the books core) which grows warm but never resolved because Andre cannot tell his father of his early rage and disappointment. There are only two developed characters in the book, Andre and his father. Mother and siblings appear and disappear but none become other than actors, not developed characters.

Of course there are flaws in this powerful and emotional book: first, it repeatedly guides the reader through streets and neighborhoods, house by house, street by street in a way meaningless to the reader, repetitive and boring. Second, he claims to recall things (a minor fault) like the color of the eyes or hair of a passing girl, to cite but one example, or of the color and nature of flowers seen years past and at that only in passing that are hard to believe (he does slip into some overly florid descriptions of open spaces, but so what?)

There is an emotional tug of this book that keeps you turning pages, immersed in the author's experiences and feelings, unwilling to set it down for the next days read. This is really good stuff.

8 people found this helpful

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TCMBookworm

The triumph of intelligence, passion and love over childhood neglect

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 22, 2011

Verified Purchase

I read Andre Dubus' novel 'House of Sand and Fog' many years ago with pleasure and admiration over his unusual and original storyline. I heard the author talking about this book on Radio 4, and wanted to read the book even before I realised who the author was. This book which details his upbringing, and that of his siblings, is a study in nature vs nurture. Imagine the dichotomy of growing up with two educated, erudite, loving divorced parents, who despite their long hours of hard work (which effectively prevented them from being able to parent properly) were unable to provide even the basics of three meals a day for their children. Their absence from their children's lives meant that they all brought themselves up, terribly imperfectly, and the collateral of this neglect reverberated down the years through the choices and relationships they made as adults. Written with vulnerability, love, affection, forgiveness, gentleness, compassion and humour, this erudite novel forms the well from which Andre Dubus is able to draw his inspiration.

6 people found this helpful

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