![]() Interview: Kristin Hersh revisits the early days of Throwing Muses in her new memoir, Rat Girl.Hannah Holmes, the Maine-born, Portland-dwelling science writer, naturalist, and friend to all animals has turned her lens deeply inward in her latest book, The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself. She and Dubus are immediately warm and comfortable together, as though he's another member of the family.Įxploring deep within, Interview: Kristin Hersh revisits the early days of Throwing Muses in her new memoir, Rat Girl, Further adventures in literary obsession and authenticity with Brock Clarke, More She's a good friend of his daughter's - or had been. Dubus bounds up the stairs and gives her a fast hug. "That's what I was running from my whole life," Dubus says.Īs we're leaving the house and the photograph, the girl comes to the top of the stairs wearing pants and a bikini top, her hair wet with dye. A war zone - windows with broken glass, empty storefronts, no cars on the road, no people on the sidewalks. Otherwise, "blighted" and "abandoned" are exactly right. The town green, where we'd just seen the Christmas tree, is the primary landmark. An aerial shot taken in 1971 from not too high above the town center we'd just driven through. We leave the front hall at the base of the stairs for a parlor and the photograph. "Hi, sweetie, I'm just showing Nina here the Newburyport photograph." "Hello! It's Andre!"Ī girl answers from upstairs, the 15-year-old daughter of his friend. We climb the steps to an imposing Victorian not far from the center of town and bang the snow off our boots. He's an enthusiastic talker, touching my elbow as he emphasizes a point. He makes a short cellphone call, asks if it'd be okay if we ducked in for a minute. It's hanging in the house of a friend of his. "I've got to show you this photograph," Dubus says. As we're rolling through town in his truck, all of it tidy, understated, inviting, it looks as though it hasn't changed since 1850. In describing the Newburyport of his youth Dubus is using words like "blighted" and "abandoned." It's hard to picture. Small shops, cafés, boutiques, in brick mostly, and non-electric signage line the main drag. A great evergreen in the middle of the square is strung with lights. Newburyport center looks lovely in the snow. (Dubus comes to the Brattle Theatre for a Harvard Book Store event on March 1.) Two hours on the road in the truck to see the places where he grew up, alleys where he fought with people, the bars and gas stations and bridges that figure in his memoir, Townie, which Norton is publishing this week. We'd be driving around the mill towns along the Merrimack River. We stopped first for a coffee for the road he asked all the questions: siblings, hometown, are you married? A SON’S STORY One wants to resist making comparisons between father and son, but they share in their writing the gift for earning sympathy for the toughest charactersĪndre Dubus III collected me at the Newburyport train station last month when the snow piles were already high.
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