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BLUESMAN
Andre Dubus III
Vintage Contemporaries
Fiction
ISBN: 0375725164
In his 1993 novel BLUESMAN, Andre Dubus III explored what would later become one of
the major themes of his 1999 breakout novel, HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG. The success of the
latter novel, a National Book Award finalist and a pick for Oprah's Book Club, has led
Vintage Contemporaries to reprint BLUESMAN, giving readers a chance to enjoy the earlier
book. While not as stunning an accomplishment as HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG, BLUESMAN is still
a powerful novel full of memorable characters caught up in desperate situations largely of
their own making.
As the novel opens Leo Suther is a junior in high school, just a few months shy of his
18th birthday. Because the year is 1967 and the Vietnam Conflict rages on, that birthday
is fraught with meaning; but Leo has his mind on other things, including a fellow student
named Allie Donovan and the blues music his father Jim and a family friend produce once a
week in the Suther home. Leo, whose mother Katie Faye died when he was just a little boy,
is soon involved with Allie and learning to play blues harmonica. He also accepts a job on
a construction crew headed up by Allie's father, Chick Donovan, a devout communist who
sets out to change the world.
The plot points --- the consequences of Allie and Leo's sexual relationship, the result of
Chick Donovan's fervor for the communist cause, the loneliness of Jim Suther as he raises
his son without the love of his life beside him --- all coalesce around the idea that
fuels both of Dubus's novels: Try as we might, we have trouble communicating our desires
and motivations to others. But while HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG makes that point about people
who come from different backgrounds and who are strangers to one another, BLUESMAN reminds
the reader that often those closest to us are equally hard to reach.
Perhaps the most accurate communication in the novel is accomplished by a character who is
no longer alive. As Leo begins to remind his father more and more of Katie Faye, Jim
decides to share with his son many of the writings and photographs she left behind. Among
them is a journal Katie Faye kept as she struggled with the illness that eventually took
her life. While this device seems a tad forced, Dubus uses it to introduce the particulars
of Jim and Katie Faye's romance and to provide Leo with the motivation for his fateful
decisions late in the book. Ironically, even this static, written communiqué from beyond
the grave leads to a series of events far removed from what Leo's mother would have wanted
for her husband and son.
Dubus is relentless in his portrayal of lives irrevocably changed by misinterpreted
attempts to express love, anger, and the remaining range of human emotions. Only in music
can Leo and Jim ultimately express the feelings they have for one another and for the
situations in which they find themselves. As Dubus makes clear, only the blues capture the
essence of the pain we often create for ourselves.
--- Reviewed by Rob Cline (RJBCline@aol.com)
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