3.5
Bluesman
ByPublisher Description
It is the summer of 1967 and Leo Suther is about to turn eighteen. This is the summer that everyone has something to teach Leo. His father warns him that "life can turn on a dime." Allie, his girlfriend, wants to teach him about love. Her father, the local communist and civil rights organizer, lectures him on politics and carpentry. And Ryder, a family friend, wants to show Leo the magic of the harmonica—harp of the blues.
However, when Leo's life threatens to come unglued, it is his mother's wisdom he turns to. Though she died before Leo was five, her voice lives on in her diaries and poems, testifying to the strength of her love for her husband and son—a love that can still, years later, offer consolation.
Dubus captures well those small, mundane moments upon which lives really turn, and he captures too the enthusiasms and confusions of adolescence confronting adulthood." —
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesBluesman Reviews
3.5
“I don't think Dubus is capable of writing a bad book, be it novel or memoir. For the longest time, I'd believed I'd read evertything by him and only recently discovered this, his first novel.
It's not necessarily his best, but it holds all the hallmarks of a Dubus novel: A very common person in a common dilemma. Dubus doesn't really write bigger-than-life stories or characters. Everything he does is relatable in some way, his characters very much everyday, and their situations the same.
But it's his observations, his writing, and how he takes the reader through the story that always hold me enraptured to the story.
This is no exception. When I find myself getting angry at a fictional character, or frustrated with a fictional plot point, then that author has grabbed me.
Dubus has done both with every single novel, including this one. If you enjoy Andre Dubus III, you'll enjoy this first outing.”
“Challenge: The 52 Book Club's Reading Challenge
Title: Bluesman
Author: Andre Dubus III
Favorite Quote: "Real waiting is doing absolutely nothing until what is expected happens."
This story was written in a very visual way. The scene setting and movement of the characters allowed me to read as if I was watching a movie. This coming of age story takes place in a short time frame, just a tick on the protagonist's lifeline.
An enjoyable read which I recommend.”
About Andre Dubus
Award-winning author Andre Dubus (1936–1999) has been hailed as one of the best American short story writers of the twentieth century. Dubus’s collections of short fiction include
(1975),
(1977), and
(1996), which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Another collection,
, features the story “Killings,” which was adapted into the critically acclaimed film
(2001), starring Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, and Marisa Tomei.
Other books by Andre Dubus
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