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Andre Dubus III
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Townie: A Memoir Kindle Edition

by Andre Dubus III (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 633 ratings
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"Dubus relives, absent self-pity or blame, a life shaped by bouts of violence and flurries of tenderness." —Vanity Fair


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" 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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    W. W. Norton & Company
  5. Publication date
    February 23, 2011
  6. File size
    1096 KB
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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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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004LB5GK8
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (February 23, 2011)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 23, 2011
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1096 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 401 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 633 ratings

About the author

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Andre Dubus III

Andre Dubus III

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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.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
633 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

K. Newcomer
5.0 out of 5 stars One of my Favorite Books
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2011
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I was not sure what to expect from the book as I was only familiar with the House of Sand and Fog. However, I am familiar with New England and the interesting characters that live there. Add in the book takes place during the 60's and 70's I had a feeling it would be interesting.

The first part of the book is fantastic and almost impossible to put down. I felt horrible for the family, but loved how the author made his way through a life that would kill or imprison many (he notes that is actually the case with several people he grew up with. The stories are vivid and real to many no matter where you grew up. Most go through their teens and twenties with some form of angst as they try to figure out who they are.

The second part of the book did ramble a little, but was good enough to make you want to learn more. I have a feeling his time in Austin may have been more interesting, but the author wanted to move through this period and get back to his family and Boston. He wanted to catch up back up with everyone there with everyone he loved and maybe confront some more devils.

The third part was slow to start, but ended wonderfully (in the writing sense, not the events). The story about him and his wife on the train in Europe was great, what a great ending to that chapter. I had a hard time keeping my emotions together for the last 50 pages, in fact I feel emotion just writing this review and thinking about it.

The memoir is quite graphic, but that is the beauty of the book. The author takes you through emotions many people are afraid to think about and confront, especially in print. Many of the situations described will ring true for others, but these vignettes of his life make him fascinating and a true read. His family is more American than many Americans want to admit. His life details aspect of some form of every American city, he got through it and discovered his gift for writing it down beautifully for all of us to learn from.

One of my favorite books to date.
2 people found this helpful
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Aaron
4.0 out of 5 stars Good writing but not the best memoir
Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2023
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Purchased this to read a memoir from an accredited writer. The book itself came in pristine condition and held up well over the course of reading.

Personally, I found the narration of the story itself to be confusing and difficult to follow in terms of tense. He tended to skip around instead of narrating in a chronological order. At numerous points, the stories and lessons felt repetitive.
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GJ
5.0 out of 5 stars Fighter and Son
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2012
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Being the son of a famous man cannot be easy. Being the son of a famous author, then trying to pave your own way as a writer must be nearly incapacitating. That is the challenge of Andre Dubus III, the son of critically acclaimed author Andre Dubus. I have to admit that when I bought the son's first novel, House of Sand and Fog, I thought it was his father's. Heartbreakingly, it was published the same month his father died.

Townie is insightful and gripping, and as page turning as any novel even though it is a non-fiction account of the son's life growing up in Iowa City and a series of hardscrabble Massachusetts mill towns, which are referenced in the title. There is so much truth in this memoir that it almost hurts to read. His father divorced when Andre, the son, was just 10, and he spends much of the book dealing with the fallout of being raised by an impoverished mother on the wrong side of the tracks. He takes up street fighting both as self-defense against the townie bullies he has to deal with on a daily basis, and as a means of understanding his own relationship with his dad. Or "Pop" as Andre calls him.

Was Andre Dubus a deadbeat dad? Not exactly, but his son offers a very different side of the man whom most readers have come to love for his mastery of the short story form. There is no doubt that Andre Dubus loved his son and namesake, but as his son dutifully recounts, he was also somewhat self-absorbed and not the most attendant dad.

This is all captured perfectly in one episode where Pop, a former Marine, picks him up one morning to go for a run. To know Andre Dubus is to know that he was a staunch Catholic and an even firmer believer in running as catharsis. His son does not have running shoes so he borrows his sister's. They do not quite fit. The son runs to keep up with his dad, mile after painful mile, unwilling to admit the truth. What son cannot relate to this? It's an exacting metaphor for the art of being a son: Your dad is always just out of reach, a few steps ahead, pushing you to go further, and you both hate and love him for it.
4 people found this helpful
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ohiomom66
3.0 out of 5 stars I really wanted to love this book
Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2011
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I appreciate the spirit of this work. Being female and a mother, I have to admit that in a general sense, I'm sure this has more appeal to a male reader. I had high expectations for this. I live in a small town in the center of which exists a (top) liberal arts college. I have family members and friends that drift between town/gown relationships and found myself feeling a bit incredulous many times while reading. The whole emotional landscape of the place just doesn't relate in any sense. Here, if you are the child of a renowned professor--well, the things that happened in this book would just not happen. And we are in the rust belt. It is hard to imagine one person getting into so many bloody brawls in a major metropolitan city let alone in a smaller college town!

For me, the biggest issue was that he never really developed a clear character in his mother. The one person that seemed to stick by the family and did not drive away to an easier life. He told us enough about her that I felt she deserved a more complete treatment. I found myself wanting to know so much more about her. It must have been a struggle for her, but I never felt it--at least not HER struggle. I ended up feeling that his dad was the only real influence in his life despite the struggle his mother endured. At the end, I felt like I slogged through fight after fight to get to something that never really developed. I read this feeling the author is on a very personal journey and if he continues to write, it will be a fascinating look into the evolution of the journey. I will be curious to see how he treats female characters in the future.
11 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

TCMBookworm
5.0 out of 5 stars The triumph of intelligence, passion and love over childhood neglect
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 22, 2011
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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.
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