"He writes brilliantly...Townie is a mesmerising work, one of the best accounts I've encountered of violence and its causes. It is worth reading just for Dubus's lengthy descriptions of fighting - passages that exhilarate even as they sicken." The Observer "Townie is riveting and poignant. The writing is crisp and lively." Financial Times "...a lyrical and frank account..." Esquire "...vibrantly written book..." The Independent "Dubus relives, absent of self-pity or blame, a life shaped by bouts of violence and flurries of tenderness." Vanity Fair "...comes out swinging hard as a brutal double portrait... of writing as rivalry and therapy, as an exercise in empathy and exorcism." The Times "...well written..." The Scotsman "...Dubus III's account of becoming an adult and eventually discovering his own gift for writing is as compelling as a novel but with the rock-hard texture of truth." Metro "...the most sensitive - and gripping - account of male violence imaginable." Robert Collins, The Sunday Times, Memoirs Christmas Round-Up 2011

National Book Award finalist Andre Dubus III is the author of The Garden of Last Days and House of Sand and Fog.