A review by mwyatt62
Townie by Andre Dubus III

5.0

This is a powerful book by a powerful writer. It is similar to Angela's Ashes and The Glass Castle in that it is a harrowing portrait of a neglected childhood. It is different in that Dubus does not soften the blow with humor as the other two writers did. It is also more of a personal journey with its focus is more on the writer's own experience and how the conditions of his life led him first to violence and then to writing (lucky for us). It is not easy to read and I often wanted to shake him and tell him to be less forgiving of his parents--they did not do the best that they could do because they were not there for their children. But I can also appreciate that his trauma made him the writer he is today (I now understand the source of the dark story told in The House of Sand and Fog), and he seems to have emerged well-grounded with the tools to contribute to the world, so maybe what his parents did was enough.