Townie: A Memoir by Andre Dubus III - review

Andre Dubus III fascinating account of his descent into a life of violence among adolescents in small towns is both exciting and scary Although its name could not bear to think, Andre Dubus III is the youngest half of the U.S. response to Kingsley and Martin Amis. Father Dubus, Andre Dubus II, was a renowned short story writer whose work has been honored for its psychological realism. Andre III - was born in 1959 - is the author of three novels, including the best-selling 1999

House of Sand and Fog

. From these facts, it would be natural to assume that

Townie: A Memoir

authors who have a strong literary taste and books are in almost every page, the writing life would be documented. But the surprise

Townie

is that while the literature is not absent, the true purpose of the book is also in very different (but not, Dubus offers, totally disconnected) field of male violence.

Dubus

family (he is the second of four children) moved to Iowa and Massachusetts when he was eight years old when his father, a former Marine, has written a teaching position in a small college. At first, things were relatively happy. His parents, poor bohemians, held regularly Dubus remember parts of the house is "full of talk and laugh, play jazz on the stage." But his father could not keep their hands obscene their students and it was not long before he left his wife to live with one of them. Without delay, the parties agreed and from that point things went rapidly downhill.

Dubus

mother left with four children, the family moved in a succession of "rent cheap houses" in various cities along the Merrimack River Mill, Lowell, Newburyport, Haverhill. (His father continued to live nearby.) They had been prosperous places, but now, with most of the industry has disappeared, they had a wreck, they feel abandoned. Dubus mother had several low-paying jobs and children are increasingly left to themselves. The spirit of anarchy ruled the house, dirty dishes piled up, Andrew and his brothers began to take drugs and not go to school on time. Above all, they was powerless to prevent the roughness of neighborhoods they have lived their lives in cascade. Every time I moved into a new house, some version of the next scene would be:

"Children roamed the neighborhood like a dog. The first week I was sitting in the sun on our feet, I made the mistake of seeing them move as they walked through the center of the street, three or four children without a shirt ... More short-haired blonde and if it seemed white, said: "What are you looking in the face of shit?

"Nothing."

was there on the first step. He pushed me hard in the chest and kicked me tibia.

"You want your face rearranged, fag ?'"

• Dubus was soon reorganized his face regularly. In 14 years, he saw his younger brother, Jed, who had attempted suicide, being brutally assaulted because he came down with the sister of a local tyrant. The incident marked a kind of watershed. If no one else will protect him and his brothers - and their parents had clearly failed in this regard - would Dubus himself. And so he devoted himself to go to someone who can deal with bullies - a small town of Clint Eastwood. In the basement was a set of weights and began working for two hours or more per night, gradually increasing bulk. He stopped drinking, he saw his diet and started going out with other types of athletics. He soon acquired ripped bodybuilder look familiar. Her older sister told the girls at school are starting to notice. This, he writes, "was thought by encouraging and flattering, but strangely out of place."

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bullying is one thing, however, be prepared to use the muscle is another. In a bar one night, Dubus had the opportunity to put their power to the test when one group began to pick up his brother. Suddenly, one floor above Dubus had terrified the cancellation of two of his teeth. "You fucking nailed," said a friend with admiration. "I nodded and smiled, then laughed and I could not remember feeling this good about anything in my life ever." Later that night, Andre repeat the incident in its head: "I wanted Jim Lynch has made me even worse than me."

From this point, violence becomes a belief Dubus, their default response to any threat. He writes brilliantly mental changes that allow this, using the metaphor of a membrane must be pierced by an act of will. "It was different from sex, which, if we want both, the membranes were offended, but violence was to break the membrane that yourself, and once you learned to do that, it was more easy to continue to do. "

As this image suggests, the problem of violence is that it is unstoppable. Dubus is soon to fight (which mostly win) all the time. He can not walk into a bar without breaking into someone's head And while the impulse behind these acts are benign - wants to bring offenders to protect the weak - who can not help but be aware of the contradictions from his post. One night he hit someone just because you watched the girlfriend of a friend. Later, he lies in bed thinking about it. "What was so wrong with just looking at Teresa's ass, then he was silent about it, and you do not see and therefore did not feel objectified and violated, what was so wrong with that? Do not look women like this all the damn time? So who am I to do what I did? "