The Effects of Surroundings

            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.