What do you think?
Rate this book
Requiem, Mass.
In the tragicomic mode of his best-selling Louisiana Power & Light , a hilarious and tenderhearted novel about a son's attempts to save his family.
John Dufresne takes us to Requiem, Mass., heart of the Commonwealth, where Johnny's mom, Frances, is driving in the breakdown lane once again. She thinks Johnny and his little sister Audrey have been replaced by aliens; she's sure of it, and she's pretty certain that she herself is already dead, or she wouldn't need to cover the stink of her rotting flesh with Jean Naté Apres Bain. Dad, truck driver and pathological liar, is down South somewhere living his secret life. And Audrey, when she's not walking her cat Deluxe in a baby stroller, spends her time locked in a closet telling herself stories. Johnny, meanwhile, is hell-bent on saving the family from itself.
In his "truly original voice" ( Miami Herald ) and with the "miraculous beauty of his tale-telling" ( New York Times Book Review ), Dufresne brings his unparalleled eye for the tragic and the absurd to the dysfunctions and joys of family in this powerful new novel.
John Dufresne takes us to Requiem, Mass., heart of the Commonwealth, where Johnny's mom, Frances, is driving in the breakdown lane once again. She thinks Johnny and his little sister Audrey have been replaced by aliens; she's sure of it, and she's pretty certain that she herself is already dead, or she wouldn't need to cover the stink of her rotting flesh with Jean Naté Apres Bain. Dad, truck driver and pathological liar, is down South somewhere living his secret life. And Audrey, when she's not walking her cat Deluxe in a baby stroller, spends her time locked in a closet telling herself stories. Johnny, meanwhile, is hell-bent on saving the family from itself.
In his "truly original voice" ( Miami Herald ) and with the "miraculous beauty of his tale-telling" ( New York Times Book Review ), Dufresne brings his unparalleled eye for the tragic and the absurd to the dysfunctions and joys of family in this powerful new novel.
- GenresFiction
320 pages, Hardcover
First published July 17, 2008
10 people are currently reading
264 people want to read
About the author
John Dufresne
50 books143 followersJohn Dufresne teaches in the Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing program at Florida International University. He is a French-Canadian born in America.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
February 2, 2009
This book is fiction disguised as autobiography. The author, after becoming a reasonably successful writer, decides to take the time to tell the story of his childhood, parts of which have appeared in his fiction in different guises.
The book begins in a light-hearted enough way, with the author recounting a childhood that has marked similarities to those related by Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris. Yes, the mother is crazy, the two kids try to hold things together while being wrapped up in their own idiosyncrasies, and the father is pretty much a non-presence. This part of the book was interesting, though it seemed a little weird, too, on account of its covering about the same ground as the two authors mentioned earlier. Especially considering the book is a fiction book. It is as if, a la "Angela's Ashes," a well known author had made up an autobiography where he was a poor Irish immigrant with a heavy-drinking father growing up in New York in the middle of the century.
I thought that maybe this was some kind of commentary by Mr. Dufresne, perhaps a way of making fun of the currently popular trend of telling the story of "your crazy childhood." That was the only reason I could imagine for making up something so close to what someone else has already described as true. But in reading the book, I couldn't see any kind of real commentary that was being made, and it wasn't really very ironic or funny, so maybe I was wrong about this. I guess I just didn't understand what the point was.
As the story goes on, the isolation of the children becomes less engaging and more depressing. Meanwhile, the author begins to insert snatches of images from his present life, often in a kind of stream of consciousness way. In one part we have the author interviewing for a job position in another town, then talking to an old colleague, then imagining what would happen if his dog died, then thinking about the My Lai Massacre, then realizing at the job interview that the job has already been given to someone else, then ordering food with his colleague, then going to some kind of faculty party, etc etc etc.
All meaning begins to dissolve as the book continues, and all we are left with are snippets of increasingly sad scenes, with the young author the only bright, sane spot trying to hold everything together. Finally, everything stops and we are completely back in the present day, only to find that all the family members have gone on to lonely or sad or pathetic fates, and that each of them seems to blame the author, for some reason.
There were many parts of this book that I didn't understand, but the feelings of the mother and sister toward the author, at the end of the book, were the most inexplicable. It made me wonder if I had missed some significant meaning in the text I'd read so far. Perhaps the book was supposed to work on some level above my understanding, and I will be the first to admit that this is probably the case, but what that level is, or what the meaning is supposed to be, I simply have no idea.
Technically, the writing was very good, and the author certainly has an ability to capture moments with feeling and precision. These abilities of Mr. Dufresne are enough to make me want to try another of his books, though I was certainly disappointed with this one.
The book begins in a light-hearted enough way, with the author recounting a childhood that has marked similarities to those related by Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris. Yes, the mother is crazy, the two kids try to hold things together while being wrapped up in their own idiosyncrasies, and the father is pretty much a non-presence. This part of the book was interesting, though it seemed a little weird, too, on account of its covering about the same ground as the two authors mentioned earlier. Especially considering the book is a fiction book. It is as if, a la "Angela's Ashes," a well known author had made up an autobiography where he was a poor Irish immigrant with a heavy-drinking father growing up in New York in the middle of the century.
I thought that maybe this was some kind of commentary by Mr. Dufresne, perhaps a way of making fun of the currently popular trend of telling the story of "your crazy childhood." That was the only reason I could imagine for making up something so close to what someone else has already described as true. But in reading the book, I couldn't see any kind of real commentary that was being made, and it wasn't really very ironic or funny, so maybe I was wrong about this. I guess I just didn't understand what the point was.
As the story goes on, the isolation of the children becomes less engaging and more depressing. Meanwhile, the author begins to insert snatches of images from his present life, often in a kind of stream of consciousness way. In one part we have the author interviewing for a job position in another town, then talking to an old colleague, then imagining what would happen if his dog died, then thinking about the My Lai Massacre, then realizing at the job interview that the job has already been given to someone else, then ordering food with his colleague, then going to some kind of faculty party, etc etc etc.
All meaning begins to dissolve as the book continues, and all we are left with are snippets of increasingly sad scenes, with the young author the only bright, sane spot trying to hold everything together. Finally, everything stops and we are completely back in the present day, only to find that all the family members have gone on to lonely or sad or pathetic fates, and that each of them seems to blame the author, for some reason.
There were many parts of this book that I didn't understand, but the feelings of the mother and sister toward the author, at the end of the book, were the most inexplicable. It made me wonder if I had missed some significant meaning in the text I'd read so far. Perhaps the book was supposed to work on some level above my understanding, and I will be the first to admit that this is probably the case, but what that level is, or what the meaning is supposed to be, I simply have no idea.
Technically, the writing was very good, and the author certainly has an ability to capture moments with feeling and precision. These abilities of Mr. Dufresne are enough to make me want to try another of his books, though I was certainly disappointed with this one.
December 25, 2009
Someday I will learn that I don't have to finish a book that I heartily dislike after only a few chapters. Until then, I torture myself with gems like this that strive to be some sort of meta-"Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" but set in New England so it's not as endearing in that weird way that messed-up Southerners are to me. Blech. There were darling bits with the loopy sister who pushes her cat in a stroller, but mental illness and the effects of a mother with one on her children doesn't automatically make for good reading, especially with long pointless non-sequiturs from the narrator.
The title was too cutesy to be trusted, anyway.
The title was too cutesy to be trusted, anyway.
May 27, 2020
I loved Dufresne's book on writing and he did follow his own instruction, but this book did not make it. There was some clever dialog and prose but overall it did not capture this reader.
September 3, 2008
John Dufresne is one of my favorite writers. He has the ability to look at the ordinary and find the extraordinary story within it. We are all fighting to survive, to protect a life that deals us twists and turns that are at once both disconcerting and enervating. He is a master of telling the story of the common man.
July 10, 2014
Couldn't even finish this book
November 14, 2021
A fictional autobiography? Well, that right there tells you everything you need to know. The author writes about a dysfunctional family and it's peculiarities starting from a young boy's perspective. As the boy in novel grows up so does the point of view--those interesting quirks aren't quite so adventurous anymore. In fact, they get tedious. The author then jumps ahead to an adult perspective as miserable things happen to an adult, with sprinklings of the younger boy's thoughts. Is that a way to confuse his audience or was it a brilliant way to show that is where his emotional growth stopped? I'm not sure. Definitely a different kind of read; kind of depressing really.
March 21, 2019
Beautifully written story of a dysfunctional family. I thoroughly enjoyed his writing style, wit, word plays. I love his storytelling, the way he weaves stories within stories, moving from present into the past and all around the past. What was also an added treat for me was the setting. Having lived for 45 years in Requiem Mass (Worcester, MA) it was fun knowing the place referencesd, trying to figure out the his cleverly renamed places (such as Lewis University - Clark University).
March 11, 2022
DNF'd at 18%. I normally don't rate books that I DNF because it's usually a problem with me rather than the book itself. Such was not the case here. This book was flummoxing for all the wrong reasons. Almost a fifth of the way through and there was no direction, a completely meandering narrative, and flimsy, unlikeable characters. Hard pass.
May 29, 2022
Don’t really know how to feel about this one. Maybe I went in with higher hopes than it warranted but it just felted very disjointed and unclear. Too many random non sequiturs that were overly distracting from the main story if you can even call it that
April 23, 2025
"What's on the screen, that, my friend, is real."
Weird for the point of being weird? It's a fictional memoir with seemingly no point. It also rarely works for me when authors jump forward in time to the present and recall things in a "stream of consciousness" sort of way.
Weird for the point of being weird? It's a fictional memoir with seemingly no point. It also rarely works for me when authors jump forward in time to the present and recall things in a "stream of consciousness" sort of way.
August 28, 2018
BAD- DIDN'T READ
August 11, 2019
Too depressing and too hard to follow. Won't read him again.
January 29, 2023
while I liked the ending, there was a lot of disconnect in parts of this book, and it could be hard to keep track of characters. A sad story, part memoir part novel was overall a good story
July 20, 2008
http://miamisunpost.com/071708bound.htm
Bound: Miami Sun Post July 17, 08
Dysfunction Junction
John Dufresne drives a family’s train right off the tracks
By John Hood
Families are funny things, peculiar rather than ha-ha, and, on occasion, decidedly dangerous to be around. Hell, given the inclination, families can also be rather deadly. Think about it. They’re not just intimate enough to be at each other’s throats, they’re often so close those throats get slit and stay slit. In other words, families know which wounds won’t heal, which cuts run the deepest and which scars will continue to cause the most hurt when they’re peeled back to scab, usually because they’re behind the blooding in the first place.
If there’s a family more stabfully peculiar than the one that gouges to the core of John Dufresne’s Requiem, Mass (Norton, $24.95), you won’t know it, unless, that is, it just so happens to resemble your own. Like most families, it tries to appear fine on its face all the while remaining fully dysfunctional. And like most families, it tends to keep its secrets to itself.
Or tries to, anyway. See, secrets, no matter how deep they’re embedded, have this nasty habit of revealing themselves, often at the most inopportune moments. When the secrets of more than one family are involved, well, that habit gets even nastier, especially when the splintered groups are sprung from the same tree.
Such is the story — front, back and center — of Dufresne’s made-up memoir, which begins with a man named Bix Melville standing in for Johnny Boy and has all the hallmarks of a fraud. “It doesn’t breathe,” says Johnny Boy’s real-life girlfriend Annick. You better start again.
So he does, digging back into his mother Frances’ encroaching psychosis, his sister Audrey’s playful bewilderance, his daddy Rainey’s absent polygamy and, mostly, what it means and how it feels to be a charter member of a family that’s unequivocally unhinged.
Me being more than just a little bit unhinged myself, I drove up to Dania (really) to see face-to-face just what kinda man lies behind this beautiful madness, a madness that began with Louisiana Power and Light, segued through Love Warps the Mind a Little and Deep in the Shade of Paradise, and last took hold of me in 2005’s Johnny Too Bad.
We took seats outside a classic dive called The King’s Head, ordered vodka neat and talked of Diahann Carroll (who makes an appearance in Requiem) and Harry Crews (who doesn’t), The Handsome Family and The Weakerthans (Dufrense digs both), a Polish bar called PRL (where he likes to drink), the gypsies of St. Petersburg (where he used to teach) and stalking students (of which Dufresne has had his share).
Mostly, though, we talked about books, which is kinda what you’d expect from a scribe who teaches creative writing at FIU.
When asked to choose between then and now, Dufresne told me he’d rather read something contemporary; Lehane, say, instead of James, or Wolfe instead of Wharton. “I wanna read about today,” he says, “the way we live these days.” Given the choice, he’d also rather stick to the pulpier side of lit street (Crumley instead of Maclean, Hammet rather than Maupin), though he did admit he’d choose Nathaniel West over James Ellroy.
And despite the fact that Dufresne considers John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces to be “the funniest thing he’s ever read,” it is to the short story that he seems to have the most allegiance, specifically the shorts of Alice Munro and William Trevor, both of whom remain his favorites.
“They deal with violent issues with this graceful, unsentimental prose,” he said. “They talk about what it’s like to be a human being and they take a lot of risks with the way they tell a story. It’s a very brave storytelling, and I always learn something from [both] when I read them.”
In fact, he continued, “a good Trevor short story like The Ballroom of Romance is as powerful as Anna Karenina in its own way.”
Dufresne went on to applaud the literary brevity of Lorrie Moore, Ron Carlson and Charles D’Ambrosio, then took time out to cite Gonzalo Barr, a Miami-based writer (and former Dufresne student) whose The Last Flight of Jose Luis Balboa earned him a Bakeless Award at Bread Loaf.
Strange that a man who’s just published a novel would go so far out of his way to advocate what in many ways is more akin to a poem; then again, Dufresne is concerned with the truth of the matter, not the duration, and those who can get to it with the fewest words possible definitely have one up on those who can’t. Perhaps that’s why Requiem’s severed into chapters that could each stand on their own without falling to proverbial pieces; or maybe, just maybe, like our wonderfully dysfunctional families, life’s just too much to be taken in all at once.
Bound: Miami Sun Post July 17, 08
Dysfunction Junction
John Dufresne drives a family’s train right off the tracks
By John Hood
Families are funny things, peculiar rather than ha-ha, and, on occasion, decidedly dangerous to be around. Hell, given the inclination, families can also be rather deadly. Think about it. They’re not just intimate enough to be at each other’s throats, they’re often so close those throats get slit and stay slit. In other words, families know which wounds won’t heal, which cuts run the deepest and which scars will continue to cause the most hurt when they’re peeled back to scab, usually because they’re behind the blooding in the first place.
If there’s a family more stabfully peculiar than the one that gouges to the core of John Dufresne’s Requiem, Mass (Norton, $24.95), you won’t know it, unless, that is, it just so happens to resemble your own. Like most families, it tries to appear fine on its face all the while remaining fully dysfunctional. And like most families, it tends to keep its secrets to itself.
Or tries to, anyway. See, secrets, no matter how deep they’re embedded, have this nasty habit of revealing themselves, often at the most inopportune moments. When the secrets of more than one family are involved, well, that habit gets even nastier, especially when the splintered groups are sprung from the same tree.
Such is the story — front, back and center — of Dufresne’s made-up memoir, which begins with a man named Bix Melville standing in for Johnny Boy and has all the hallmarks of a fraud. “It doesn’t breathe,” says Johnny Boy’s real-life girlfriend Annick. You better start again.
So he does, digging back into his mother Frances’ encroaching psychosis, his sister Audrey’s playful bewilderance, his daddy Rainey’s absent polygamy and, mostly, what it means and how it feels to be a charter member of a family that’s unequivocally unhinged.
Me being more than just a little bit unhinged myself, I drove up to Dania (really) to see face-to-face just what kinda man lies behind this beautiful madness, a madness that began with Louisiana Power and Light, segued through Love Warps the Mind a Little and Deep in the Shade of Paradise, and last took hold of me in 2005’s Johnny Too Bad.
We took seats outside a classic dive called The King’s Head, ordered vodka neat and talked of Diahann Carroll (who makes an appearance in Requiem) and Harry Crews (who doesn’t), The Handsome Family and The Weakerthans (Dufrense digs both), a Polish bar called PRL (where he likes to drink), the gypsies of St. Petersburg (where he used to teach) and stalking students (of which Dufresne has had his share).
Mostly, though, we talked about books, which is kinda what you’d expect from a scribe who teaches creative writing at FIU.
When asked to choose between then and now, Dufresne told me he’d rather read something contemporary; Lehane, say, instead of James, or Wolfe instead of Wharton. “I wanna read about today,” he says, “the way we live these days.” Given the choice, he’d also rather stick to the pulpier side of lit street (Crumley instead of Maclean, Hammet rather than Maupin), though he did admit he’d choose Nathaniel West over James Ellroy.
And despite the fact that Dufresne considers John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces to be “the funniest thing he’s ever read,” it is to the short story that he seems to have the most allegiance, specifically the shorts of Alice Munro and William Trevor, both of whom remain his favorites.
“They deal with violent issues with this graceful, unsentimental prose,” he said. “They talk about what it’s like to be a human being and they take a lot of risks with the way they tell a story. It’s a very brave storytelling, and I always learn something from [both] when I read them.”
In fact, he continued, “a good Trevor short story like The Ballroom of Romance is as powerful as Anna Karenina in its own way.”
Dufresne went on to applaud the literary brevity of Lorrie Moore, Ron Carlson and Charles D’Ambrosio, then took time out to cite Gonzalo Barr, a Miami-based writer (and former Dufresne student) whose The Last Flight of Jose Luis Balboa earned him a Bakeless Award at Bread Loaf.
Strange that a man who’s just published a novel would go so far out of his way to advocate what in many ways is more akin to a poem; then again, Dufresne is concerned with the truth of the matter, not the duration, and those who can get to it with the fewest words possible definitely have one up on those who can’t. Perhaps that’s why Requiem’s severed into chapters that could each stand on their own without falling to proverbial pieces; or maybe, just maybe, like our wonderfully dysfunctional families, life’s just too much to be taken in all at once.
June 22, 2018
Not as good as LPL.
January 25, 2025
INTERESTING, sometimes confusing, mostly phunny, definitely unique
March 1, 2009
This book was difficult to review. The premise was intriguing, and John Dufresne's writing is very tight, both in dialogue and in characterization. Unfortunately, as the story progressed, I felt less and less interested in it, until I became totally detached and just wanted the book to end.
For a character-driven story, Requiem, Mass. lacks enough depth to succeed in sharing characters' souls with us. It tries admirably, and nearly succeeds on one or two occasions. Others may identify with or enjoy the plights of Johnny-boy and Audrey; I found them dull. By the end of the novel, very little has changed. Johnny's dad is still promiscuous; his mother is still crazy; Audrey's still a bit touched in the head.
Ever read a book that you could tolerate for the first two thirds, then suddenly it all falls apart during the third act? This happened to me in Requiem, Mass.. It suddenly took a sharp swan dive into the Land of Pithy Postmodern Commentary on Suburban Society. I was almost tempted to walk away and never return, but I persevered ... and was pleasantly surprised. The ending--the very last page in fact--redeemed the book enough that I gave it two stars instead of one. It couldn't redeem the three hundred pages that preceded it.
For a character-driven story, Requiem, Mass. lacks enough depth to succeed in sharing characters' souls with us. It tries admirably, and nearly succeeds on one or two occasions. Others may identify with or enjoy the plights of Johnny-boy and Audrey; I found them dull. By the end of the novel, very little has changed. Johnny's dad is still promiscuous; his mother is still crazy; Audrey's still a bit touched in the head.
Ever read a book that you could tolerate for the first two thirds, then suddenly it all falls apart during the third act? This happened to me in Requiem, Mass.. It suddenly took a sharp swan dive into the Land of Pithy Postmodern Commentary on Suburban Society. I was almost tempted to walk away and never return, but I persevered ... and was pleasantly surprised. The ending--the very last page in fact--redeemed the book enough that I gave it two stars instead of one. It couldn't redeem the three hundred pages that preceded it.
November 18, 2008
In the same vein as Burroughs' "Running with Scissors," another tale of crazy mother and repercussions on children. Enjoyed the descriptions of growing up in working class town in Mass., and ridiculous events at Catholic School. Not so hot on the flash forwards to the fellow as a grown-up, and his speech when he is a kid is decidedly adult post-therapy-speak. That could be funny if the set-up was that the kid was born a brilliant psychologist, but he wasn't. So the conversations with his mom ring a little untrue. Still, a good read when the author sticks to the wacky events of this boy's life, adventures with shape-shifter dad, unique set of neighbors....
Needs one more round of editing to clean up and clearly define book--excise some of the latter day stuff & condense some of the remembrances. Then it'd be terrific.
Needs one more round of editing to clean up and clearly define book--excise some of the latter day stuff & condense some of the remembrances. Then it'd be terrific.
November 1, 2008
I enjoy Dufresne for reasons that I love John Irving. His style is decidedly more southern (e.g. grotesque) than Irving, while maintaining an element of surrealism and comedy. I have just started this book (having read Louisiana Power & Light and Love Warps the Mind a Little), so perhaps more to come....
Not much more to come. The process of reading the book is more interesting than what i took from it. Screwy childhood equals adulthood (or am I pulling in too much of Love Warps the Mind a Little). The semi-memoir feel of the book allowed for the style of the writer to come across, and has in the other of his books, so that was nothing new.
Overall, I did not waste my time on this book, but I'm not going to bother reading it again.
Not much more to come. The process of reading the book is more interesting than what i took from it. Screwy childhood equals adulthood (or am I pulling in too much of Love Warps the Mind a Little). The semi-memoir feel of the book allowed for the style of the writer to come across, and has in the other of his books, so that was nothing new.
Overall, I did not waste my time on this book, but I'm not going to bother reading it again.
April 4, 2013
I love novels that are about writers and therefore about writing. In this book, the writer is working on a memoir so there's a lot of musing about the fallibility of memory and he responsibility of a writer to respect others' privacy. These are both questions that come up often when I teach memoir writing, and there are no good answers.
This book is in first person, and all that musing by the writer implies that he's an unreliable narrator. By the end of the book, the character even comes out and says that the story may or may not be true. The narrator's metacognition on his book allows Dufresne to explore ideas about writing in a unique way. It also gives this book a postmodern feel that I love.
This book is in first person, and all that musing by the writer implies that he's an unreliable narrator. By the end of the book, the character even comes out and says that the story may or may not be true. The narrator's metacognition on his book allows Dufresne to explore ideas about writing in a unique way. It also gives this book a postmodern feel that I love.
August 26, 2009
Okay, he writes amazingly well. I love the funny/tragic thing. I really wish they would keep the language a bit cleaner, though his was definitely not gratuitous. He has no love for Catholic schools, and no real religion, but I loved the brother/sister relationship. I guess I just get tired of dysfunctional families, however, it sure makes me grateful for my own family. It's hard to imagine people live like that. (A tribute to his writing, I keep forgetting it's a novel, and not a memoir) I also really liked the almost stream of consciousness thing going on. My thought processes don't run in organized straight lines, either. He goes off on tangents, which seems very authentic to me.
September 14, 2008
I liked this book overall, despite it sometimes reveling in the quirkyness of its characters and dipping its toes a few too many times into the "is it a memoir or is it fiction and what is memoir anyway" pool. Parts of this story about a working class Catholic family torn apart by mental illness are pretty funny. Other parts try to be funny and come off a bit forced. Best of all are the "present day" parts where the narrator lets down his guard a bit and lets the reader in. Never dull, and ultimately very fun to read.
December 12, 2008
I really enjoyed this book. Johnny's mom Frances was a believable character, her mental illness struck me as real rather than someone's Hollywood ideal of mental illness. I really felt for the children in the novel, and to me that is proof that the book was well written. One thing I didn't like was the ending. Seems as though a lot of writers lately just rush endings without tying things together. And I felt a few things were left unexplained which made it seem pointless for the author to touch on them at all in the novel. With that said, I would still recommend this book.
January 21, 2010
Very rarely do I not like a book that read, let alone not finish it, but sadly this is where I am with this book. Perhaps I'll revisit it another time. The authors approach was a bit unusual (not that I'm not willing to consider unusual) but it was frustrating each time he would stop telling the story (which is autobiographic) to describe what he was doing at the exact moment he was writing the story. This book received good reviews but I'm not quite there...at least not yet. I will give it another chance some day.
February 22, 2009
Ugh. This book definitely goes in the category of some of the worst books I've ever read. It's like he vomited words and sentences on a page, got it bound, and called it a novel. The story (if there even was one) jumped all over the place as if we were looking into the brain of someone suffering from severe attention deficit disorder. I am disappointed that I wasted the hours of my life reading this book, hoping it would get better as I read it.
April 5, 2009
Very interesting family/growing up story. The main character is an adult writing a memoir so the timeline jumps back & forth but mostly follows his childhood. His mother has mental health issues and is very unstable. His dad is a trucker and you find that he has another family elsewhere. Ultimately, he lives with the other family which creates some stability. Dufresne just has an interesting take on things, it has a melancholy sentiment to it and I wanted the author to prevail.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 8, 2009
In flagrante delicto, I put my membership in the Transcontinental Book Swap in jeopardy by binging(spellcheck says that's OK, but "spellcheck" ain't)on John Dufresne. However, I have no regrets, as John Dufresne is as good as ever. This, together with "Johnny Too Bad: Stories," reminded me that I am love with writers...writers that really touch me the right way. Without harassment and/or a trip to Human Resources.
March 8, 2012
Another book that blurred the lines of fiction and memoir. Dufresne has the tragi-comic writing down pat. I didn't mind the chapters switching from childhood to adulthood, but I found some of the adult experiences a little confusing and disjointed. I also felt the ending was a bit rushed. I think it is believable the way his family ended up, but I would have liked a little more information/explanation about what happened between him and Audrey.
January 28, 2009
I bailed on it. Not sure if the new US narrative is boring or if I just don't get it. It's probably me not them, but I couldn't stand this book nor "then we came to an end". I think the narrative structure with so much written to tell so little gets to me. I was struggling to finish it and decided to drop it since I was not enjoying the read. Sigh.
February 7, 2014
This is a book to be read very quickly - don't put it down when life gets in the way, or you'll lose track of the characters. As it leaps around the author's life, you'll meet a host of completely original people, living ordinary lives that prove that everyday life is anything but ordinary. I loved it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews