Townie

A Memoir

By: Andre Dubus III

Narrated by: Andre Dubus III

Andre Dubus III, author of the National Book Award–nominated House of Sand and Fog and The Garden of Last Days, 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 crime. To protect himself and those he loved from street violence, Andre learned to use his fists so well that he was even scared of himself. He was on a fast track to getting killed—or killing someone else—or to beatings-for-pay as a boxer.

Nearby, his father, an eminent author, taught on a college campus and took the kids out on Sundays. The clash of worlds couldn’t have been more stark—or more difficult for a son to communicate to a father. Only by becoming a writer himself could Andre begin to bridge the abyss and save himself. His memoir is a riveting, visceral, profound meditation on physical violence and the failures and triumphs of love.

©2011 Andre Dubus (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“The best first-person account of an author’s life I have ever read.” (James Lee Burke, New York Times best-selling author)

“In this gritty and gripping memoir, Dubus bares his soul in stunning and page-turning prose.” (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review)

“Powerful, haunting. . . . Beautifully written and bursting with life.” (Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review)

Thought provoking memoir

Although difficult to listen to at times because of the emotional and violent content and the cadence of the narration, I found this memoir to be real, raw and an important vehicle to encourage thought and empathy.

My favorite audio book

Would you consider the audio edition of Townie to be better than the print version?

When the audio book finished I thought that the book was amazing and the performance was absolutely stupendous. Then I heard in the summary information that the author had done the reading. I gasped out loud and started laughing. That explained why the accents were so perfect and the voices were spot on. I am so glad that I listened to the book rather than reading it although I do love reading books.

What did you like best about this story?

I grew up in the same area as the author and I had thought the character of these towns was indescribable. Now I know better. The author captured the flavor better than Stephen King could have done it.

What does Andre Dubus III bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The reading was perfection.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I felt a sudden understanding of what my brother must have experienced when we were growing up. As a teenager he seemed to attract violence and now I understand a bit more of how that happens.

Any additional comments?

I've recommended this book at every opportunity. Especially for teenage boys and young men but as a middle-aged woman I absolutely loved it.

Townie

What a good memoir about the author of The House of Sand and Fog, Andre Dubus III ! It had all the characteristics that I would look for in a good memoir. First of all, Andre had a tough life ??? a tough childhood. So that gives the reader lots of drama, conflict, and suspense. Andre IS good at describing these conflicts so that the reader really feels them. Then, he has two different turning points in his life that provide him revenge and then redemption. In this way, Andre???s internal conflicts are finally resolved, and it felt really moving to see how these changes manifest in his life.

The only fault I have with the book is that the drama leading up to both of these turning points goes on too long. Before Andre shifts into revenge mode, there are too many times when we see him being bullied and scared. Then, after he starts lifting weights and training as a fighter, there are just way too many confrontations and bloody battles. I already got the point about Andre fighting to make up for all the earlier times he was bullied and couldn???t defend his family or himself! I really think the book would have benefited by shortening these two sections. I almost wanted to give up on it at one point.

My favorite parts were some of those involving his ???redemption.??? When he becomes a writer, his analogy of how clearing his head with writing was as good and better than doing so by fighting was really moving. His marriage and the birth of his kids helped him to overcome his brutal past as well. His description of caring for his kids as ??????a love so large my body could not hold it all, ??? is great. Then when he talks about his dad???s funeral and looks back on his past and we get a condensed view of how far he and all his family have come, well, I thought that was a really emotional ending. He does it by describing a car full of punks who interrupt the funeral briefly. This sets him on a fantasy of following the car as he might have done in the past to beat up the punks. This description is interwoven with the minister at the funeral reading The Lord???s Prayer. It???s like the prayer was for him and how far he and his family have really traveled to be able not to be ???led into temptation??? and for him to be able to forgive his father for all his many shortcomings. It was a great way to put his whole life in perspective and end the book.

Raw, real, and transformative

Truly the best audio book I've listened to to date. Being narrated by the author makes a huge difference in believing and "living through" a person's real-life story, and Andre Dubus III made me feel like I was there for all the brutal, but somehow always reflective and hopeful, events of his life. And his subtle, old school Boston accent sounds like home to me. Thank you for sharing your story, and that of your family, Mr. Dubus.

Beautiful memoir.

Beautiful story about the son of an artist and dreamer who becomes an artist and dreamer himself. Beautifully written. Beautifully narrated.

A book of two halves

I really liked this book, and the narration was very good. The only issue I have with it is the author's rather monotonous descriptions of situations. I lost count of the amount of smell references he made to scenes and places and the amount of cigarette smoke references were multiple.
That said, the second half of the book is truly compelling and a real coming of age tale, the first part did take some getting used to for me.

True Townie

Fabulous. He writes of characters true to the town. Revisiting these locations, events, and people was nostalgic. whole the Townie is based on a certain place and people. The story is familiar to anyone a child from 1970 and up.

Enthralling!

My husband and have both listened to this book twice, once together and once separately, and we were both enthralled with it. Dubus' raw emotion pulled at me; while the pain, physical and psychological, made me cringe.
We live next door to Haverhill so we particularly enjoyed envisioning the local landmarks as we listened. A gritty tale of growing up in a New England mill city.

Thats Haverhill for yah!!

its a strange place full of anger but also nice enough at times ,but this is what it was like for most male teens growing up and right up to the day of your funeral you never know when your next fight will come or your last !

Superbly crafted life story

While no one else should have read Andre Dubus III’s own life story, the author is not the best reader. A bit of a conundrum, I realize, but nonetheless this shouldn’t hold you back from listening. He’s not outright terrible as a reader, and most emphatically he is hugely gifted as a writer. I’ve enjoyed a few of Dubus’s novels, notably The House of Sand and Fog, and the recent Such Kindness. Had no idea of the life of the author behind these works. His journey, from a lost and bullied boy living with little parental oversight in a rough town to a major author is wonderfully told, with much to say about what it meant to discover himself as a writer. Go for it.