Townie

Townie is the 2011 memoir written by American novelist Andre Dubus III. Set in the mill town of Haverhill, Massachusetts during the 1970s, Andre recounts his time growing up and coming of age as the son of acclaimed writer and professor, Andre Dubus II. Describing his formative years as a bullied, impoverished, drug and alcohol addicted teenager heading down a destructive path following his parents’ divorce, Andre ultimately finds refuge in learning how to fight. Later, reconciling the clash between brains and brawn, Andre cathartically escapes his violent past through empathetic storytelling. The memoir touches on themes of adolescence, poverty, violence, divorce, fatherhood, self-expression, authorship, and urban American identity. Townie has been called “a stormy and courageous memoir” by The New Yorker and “shocking, necessary, and indispensable ” by NPR.

The memoir begins in the rundown mill town of Haverhill, Massachusetts. Andre Dubus III, the second eldest child of four siblings, recalls the pivotal point in his past when his father left his mother in 1968. Andre Dubus II, famed writer (The Winter Father) and professor at Bradford College, philandered so often with coeds that he eventually abandoned his family to pursue a young female student. He would only visit his four children once or twice a week, usually on Sundays. Dubus II, an ex-Marine, would continue courting young women and ultimately marry thrice.

Guideless, ten-year-old Andre begins grappling with the deep sense of “hurt and rage” left in the wake of his father’s absence. Andre chronicles the dire poverty that he, his three siblings, and single mother endured in the early 1970s. He describes the crime-ridden neighborhoods of mill towns like Lowell and Newburyport, the cheaply rented apartments his childhood was confined to, the canned-food entrées his family subsisted on, the low-paying, long-hour jobs his single mom worked, etc. Andre notes the abject filth of his surroundings; the jam-packed dirt lots and dumpsters full of used condoms and diapers.



Andre also tells of the times when his apartment would be littered with drug-addled “townies”—rough neighborhood kids who would hang out for hours smoking pot and listening to rock-n-roll. Andre’s older sister, Suzanne, dealt drugs to locals, turning their apartment into a hub of illicit activity. Andre notes how this lifestyle wore on each family member, highlighting how Suzanne was brutally gang-raped. Andre also describes his younger brother Jeb’s torrid affair with a former schoolteacher twenty-two years his senior. Jeb attempted suicide later in life. Andre’s younger sister, Nicole, becomes so affected by her dysfunctional family dynamic that she padlocks her bedroom door and hardly ever comes out. Sick of being bullied, Andre makes the deliberate decision to transform his physique as a means of self-defense.

At sixteen years old, after his brother Jeb is beaten up by a schoolyard bully, Andre bulks up through weightlifting and charts a new course as a beefed-up brawler. Andre religiously reads Body Builder Magazine, cuts his diet down to only tuna and eggs, and begins rigorous training methods. He learns how to wrap his own boxing gloves and hit the heavy-bag to channel his unbounded rage. Much of Andre’s memoir consists of vividly detailing his fifteen-year history of parking lot brawls and barroom fights. Andre describes an underground culture of club brawling, a la Fight Club, and how the growing popularity drew scores of howling spectators.

Andre also describes fighting in restaurants and in the streets. He recounts knocking Jeb’s bully out-cold with a single punch to the face. According to Andre, his pugilistic prowess gave him confidence, social status, and even a sense of pride from his estranged father. However, after sparring with his sister’s old beau, Andre recognizes his unhealthy infatuation with hand-to-hand combat. Still, letting go of his violent past proves difficult. Attending Bradford College, Andre is upset that his father acts more like a friend than a dad, commingling at frat parties and getting drunk.



Then, everything changes in 1986. Following a car accident that crushes his father’s legs, leaving him confined to a wheelchair for thirteen years, Andre begins caretaking Dubus II. A major shift in Andre’s life comes when he begins expressing himself through his written words rather than his thrown fists. He trades fighting for writing, reaping rewards just as gratifying. Andre, at first unable to reconcile living in the shadow of his larger-than-life father (seen as just a “townie” by locals), slowly warms up to his father’s company.

As the memoir concludes, the chief concern Andre grapples with is whether or not he should look after a father who did not care for him as a child. Swapping rage and violence for warmth and compassion, Andre ultimately forgives his “new father,” even if the pain and anguish of his childhood abandonment never erode. Andre aids his father by building wheelchair ramps around the house and helping restore his upper-body strength through weightlifting.

When his father dies in 1999, Andre notes how the death feels similar to when his father abandoned the family thirty years before. Andre cites a famous image from his father’s celebrated short story The Winter Father, in which a little boy grows smaller in the rearview mirror of a car pulling away from him. Andre confesses that the little boy running after his father with tears in his eyes was, in reality, his brother Jeb. Andre witnessed the event memorialized in his father’s story, noting how he will always be haunted by this lasting image the same way his father was decades before.



Andre Dubus III is the author of the acclaimed novel, House of Sand and Fog, which was adapted into a major motion picture in 2003. Dubus III’s 2008 novel, The Garden of Last Days, is currently being developed as a feature film as well. Townie: A Memoir was listed as a New York Times Bestseller.