It had never been the intention of novelist Andre Dubus III to write a memoir. A few years ago, though, he began work on an essay about growing up ignorant of baseball, "and I just kept going," he said. The result, eventually, was "Townie," a book both beautiful and brutal, which tells the story of his hardscrabble upbringing in a dying Massachusetts mill town.
After his parents divorced, the family grew destitute. His mother was exhausted, and his father, writer Andre Dubus, simply wasn't around much -- as divorced dads weren't in those years, his son hastens to note.
Young Andre was small and wore glasses, which made him a target of bullies, until he started lifting weights and learning to box. After that, he still got into fights, but now he was winning -- and discovering a brutal, dangerous side to himself.
Dubus is perhaps best known for his novel "House of Sand and Fog," a perennial favorite of book clubs and a finalist for a National Book Award. "Townie," now out in paperback, also captivated readers, landing on the New York Times bestseller list and being named one of the 10 best books of 2011 by Esquire magazine.
He'll read Thursday at Micawber's Books in St. Paul. In a recent phone interview, he talked about the nature of memoir and how writing saved him from a life of violence.
Q "Townie" is beautiful, but violent. Was it tough to go back and immerse yourself in that part of your life?
A There's a great line from Truman Capote, "The writer must write as cool and detached as a surgeon." Enough years, and decades, in fact, have passed since those fights so that I was able to really just work on the craft part of it. But here's the weird thing -- I think it's kind of triggered a little post traumatic stress disorder symptoms in me. Like, I'll be closing my eyes at the gym to do like a warmup exercise, and I'll have to open them because I'll feel like someone's sneaking up on me.
Maybe 10 years ago I was sitting in a restaurant with my wife, and something was weird, and I realized, "Oh, I have my back to the whole restaurant." It was the first time since my fighting years I'd sat without my back to the wall to see who was coming in. And I realized after writing "Townie" I was sitting with my back to the wall again. So it kind of rustled up some emotional sediment that hasn't quite settled.