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Reading John Dufresne: Requiem, Mass.

  • 41yoirdr2al

There may be no actual town of Requiem, Massachusetts (John Dufresne uses his native Worcester as a template), but the place evoked in this dysfunctional-family saga is as tangible as the Mozart funeral marches to which the title alludes. And since sadistic nuns, gasoline baths, polygamy, and loony bins all play a part in the fake memoir, it's also just as dark. Fortunately, Dufresne's Johnny Boy finds humor in bleakness, looking back on the story of his life with the kind of grin that allows him to bear it all, despite the fact that his own mother doesn't know who he is.

– John Hood

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