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Adult Books - Fiction - General Fiction
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Requiem, Mass.
Dufresne, John (author).
July 2008. 352p. Norton, hardcover, $24.95 (9780393057904).
REVIEW.
First published July, 2008 (Booklist).
Johnny’s mentally ill mother, Frances, thinks her children are gone and have been replaced by impostors. Each day, Johnny and his younger sister, Audrey, care for themselves with the help of an assortment of quirky friends and neighbors, including the make-believe family the Sandilands, who offer refuge and respite. Each day, they explain to their mother they really are her children and wait for their father, a long-haul truck driver and habitual liar. Unlike his father, Johnny can’t escape the turmoil at home and is determined to hold the center in the small working-class town of Requiem. Johnny intersperses recollections of a tragic and complicated childhood with, what was for a while, a directionless adulthood, as he struggles to maintain relationships with his family and maybe make a life for himself. Dufresne’s characters are poignant, their frailties both pitiful and hilarious in this novel of the strong push and pull of family entanglements.— Vanessa Bush
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