Memoirs not only give the reader
incite to the author’s life, but they also teach you about the people around
them and the places they have encountered. Both Andre Dubus III and Michael
Patrick MacDonald wrote about their rough childhoods and growing up in the rough
neighborhood of cities in Massachusetts with a single mother providing for them
and their siblings. While Dubus moved around and living in Haverhill and the
other Mill Cities around there, MacDonald spent most of his life in Southie, a
section of Boston that is highly populated by Irish-Americans. These men are only
seven years apart in age so many of their experiences were happening at the
same time. Both these amazing authors were shaped similarly by the places that
they grew up, their families, and the other people around them.
Dubus and MacDonald both grew up in
rough neighborhoods and these places have become a big part of who they are.
Andre Dubus III’s book Townie is
named after who he was. The word townie was used to describe someone who grew
up in the neighborhoods that he did and by putting that as the title of his
book Dubus shows that the places he lived did affect him. If Andre Dubus III
had not grown moved to these neighborhoods and had stayed in the first house described
in the book with his parents still together he would be a completely different
person. The rough neighborhoods made him change into someone who could protect themselves
and the others around him. Drugs seemed to be a common factor among all the other
kids in Dubus’s neighborhood and for a while he fell into the lifestyle as
well, but eventually he changed his way of life, he would work out instead of
going out with his sister. He became a fighter because of the places he lived
and even today he still has to fight back the need to fight mentality he was
once so proud of.
In
his book All Souls MacDonald describes
his life in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Boston, Southie, a place where
people died often because of drugs or fights. While he was living their Whitey
Bulger was just becoming a prominent role in society and his popularity was
growing rapidly. At the time everyone in Southie thought that Bulger was
helping to keep them safe even though he was actually doing the opposite. MacDonald
was pulled into the world of drugs in Southie by his brother, and at one point
was helping sell drugs to other kids at the clubs they would hang out in. But
he realized the danger of drug dealing and the drugs themselves and decided he
did not want to be a part of it. Michael Patrick MacDonald let Southie when he
was old enough to provide for himself because of all the violence and
corruption in the neighborhood, but he could not stay away for long. The violence
in South affected him so greatly he
began to lead a gun by back program that would help make the streets of
Boston safer, it took him a while but he eventually went back to Southie to
help make it a better place. He held a memorial in a local church on All Souls
Day, the day after All Saints Day, to remember everyone from Southie even those
who had died honorably. This part of Boston became such a big part of his life
he could not leave it behind broken, it changed how he would act for the rest
of his life.
Both of these authors became who
they are because of the part of town they lived and were raised in. Violence
played a main role in both Dubus and MacDonald’s life. While Dubus learned to
fight to protect others, MacDonald grew up to become part of a program that
tried to decrease violence. Both men did what they thought they had to in order
to survive in these rough areas and to keep their loved ones safe. Both men
were subjected to drug use for a portion of their lives, but chose to move away
from them to become the people they wanted to be. Haverhill and Southie played
a large role in molding Andre Dubus III and Michael Patrick MacDonald into the people
they are today.
Without their families Dubus and
MacDonald would be completely different people. Andre Dubus III was shaped
greatly by his family. His father did not play a fatherly role in his life, he
took the Dubus and his siblings out for food on occasion and later in life
became more of a friend to them then a father. Without a father Dubus had
nobody to teach him to do many things a boy his age should have known how to
do, for example: throw a baseball. The partial absence of his father took a
toll on Andre Dubus III, he believed that he had to step up in his family
because he was the eldest boy. When
Andre Dubus III came to the University of Massachusetts Lowell he said that the
hardest part of Townie for him to
write was his family, he originally tried to write the story of his childhood
excluding his family members. He also mentioned that if he would have talked to
his father about how hard his childhood was he probably would not have written Townie. After seeing his brother Jeb
beat up in front of him and hearing about his sister Suzanne’s rape, Dubus
decided that he needed to make a change in his life. He wanted to be able to
protect his family and anyone else who needed protecting, so he began to work
out until he was able to defend himself and others.
On the inside of the front cover in All Souls Michael Patrick MacDonald put
the birth dates and, if relevant, the death dates of all of his siblings. His
mother had eleven children, out of these eleven only six of them are still
alive and well. MacDonald’s mother had to raise all of her children by herself,
their father was never in the picture. MacDonald watched as many of his siblings
became involved in drugs and even became part of the violence in Southie. His
older brother Kevin began to work for Whitey Bulger selling drugs. His sister
Kathleen got heavily involved in drugs and his brother Davy committed suicide
at the young age of twenty-three. All of his siblings that passed away did not
live beyond their twenties. Michael Patrick MacDonald’s youngest brother Stevie
was sent to jail for murder when he was still just a child because one of his
friends found a gun in the house and accidentally shot himself with it. Stevie
was blamed for the death even though it was not his fault. MacDonald’s family suffered
so greatly from all the violence in Southie that he tried to change the area
that they lived in and make it a better place.
Andre Dubus III and Michael Patrick
MacDonald both had families with a lot of problems. Neither man had a father to
depend on and both had siblings that were mentally unstable. While Dubus’s
brother survived his suicide attempt and changed his life around, MacDonald’s
brother did not have that chance. Both men had to take care of themselves emotionally
as they grew up because their mothers’ were trying to provide for the family
and had to deal with their sibling’s emotional trauma. They had to grow up
before they should have had to so they could take care of themselves and their
families. Both of these men took what happened to their families and tried to
change the situations. Dubus tried to become stronger so he could protect them
and MacDonald tried to free them from a life of violence.
The people in the areas that Dubus
and MacDonald grew up in also played a role in making them into the people they
are today. Clay Whelan, Dubus’s childhood bully, helped give Dubus the anger he
needed to “buff up” as well as the people who stole the new bikes their mom’s boyfriend
Bruce had bought them. On page forty-two of Townie
Dubus describes the feeling of wanting to kill the people who stole the bikes. Andre
Dubus III’s best friend Sam helped him work out and become the person he wanted
to be. Together they would exercise, lift weights, and box so they could be
strong enough to protect those who needed protecting. Dubus’s wife also changed
him, he turned from a life of violence when he met her. When they were on the
train and the drug dealers were walking up and down scaring everyone instead of
fighting them like the old Dubus would have done he spoke to them. As Andre
Dubus III grew up and the people around him changed, so did he.
In Southie, Michael Patrick
MacDonald was always taught that everyone who lived there was like family, the
entire neighborhood was one large extended family. When violence broke out nobody
told on anyone else because you did not “rat” on your family. Growing up
MacDonald did not understand why people from Southie were killing other people
from Southie if they were all supposed to be one big family. But even he had the
family mentality. That is why even though his family had moved out of Southie
MacDonald went back to save what family he had left. Whitey Bulger played a
huge role in who MacDonald became even though the two never actually
interacted. Bulger brought drugs and violence into Southie and pretended like
he was protecting them from the very same things. Bulger’s actions played a
role in the deaths of Michael Patrick MacDonald’s sibling and the death of many
of MacDonald’s childhood friends.
The people around us affect the
people we become, and that is was happened to Dubus and MacDonald. Both men looked
at the people around them and tried to change for what they thought was the
better. They became the people that they are today because of the help and the
hurt that the people that surrounded them were the cause of. Dubus used the bad
people in his life to decide to change and the good to help him get to where he
wanted to be. On the other hand, MacDonald looked at the people around him and
how they were being affected and decided to change in a way that would help
them. Both these men had help in changing who they were, but their changes also
helped the other people around them.
Townie
and All Souls are both memoirs about the
lives of two great authors. They not only help the reader understand more about
the authors themselves, but these books also help readers understand the places
they have lived and the people they have encountered. Andre Dubus III and
Michael Patrick MacDonald became who they are today because of the places they
lived, their families, and others who became part of their lives as they grew
up. If any of these aspects had been different as they grew up they might not
have become the great men and authors that they are today. Their stories and
their persons would be very different. The place they lived affected their
families and caused many people to become part of their lives. These memoirs do
an amazing job in informing the reader and in expressing the truth, not holding
back the truth to make anyone else look better.
