It was only when writing “Townie” that I wrote directly about this place for the first time, and that kind of freed me up to fictionalize it. I grew up along the Merrimack River in these abandoned mill towns. 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. Q: How has setting stories closer to home influenced your work?Ī: It felt good to try to capture people from this region. 'Dubus relives, absent self-pity or blame, a life shaped by bouts of violence and flurries of tenderness.' Vanity Fair. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Townie: A Novel. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. He spoke to Reuters in a house he built by hand about the role of landscape in his writing, his aversion to the wired life, and the characters that define his work. Townie: A Novel - Kindle edition by Butman, John.

He is also the son of writer Andre Dubus II, whose troubled family life was a major element of “Townie.” REUTERS/Brian Snyder/Filesīut Dubus’ native New England did not find a setting in his fiction until he published a collection of novellas, “Dirty Love,” which depicts small-city and shore-town residents in messy quests for human relationships.ĭubus’ novels include “House of Sand and Fog,” which was made into an Oscar-nominated movie. Author Andre Dubus III answers a question during an interview with Reuters at his home in Newburyport, Massachusetts December 2, 2010. Townie: A Memoir Paperback Februby Andre Dubus III (Author) 572 ratings Editors' pick Best Biographies & Memoirs See all formats and editions Kindle 9.49 Read with Our Free App Audiobook 0.00 Free with your Audible trial Hardcover 17.04 89 Used from 1.25 23 New from 5.95 34 Collectible from 4.

Townie novel