Reviews for Requiem, Mass.

The average rating for Requiem, Mass. based on 2 reviews is 1.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-02-02 00:00:00 Jerry Tresch This book is fiction disguised as autobiography. The author, after becoming a reasonably successful writer, decides to take the time to tell the story of his childhood, parts of which have appeared in his fiction in different guises. The book begins in a light-hearted enough way, with the author recounting a childhood that has marked similarities to those related by Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris. Yes, the mother is crazy, the two kids try to hold things together while being wrapped up in their own idiosyncrasies, and the father is pretty much a non-presence. This part of the book was interesting, though it seemed a little weird, too, on account of its covering about the same ground as the two authors mentioned earlier. Especially considering the book is a fiction book. It is as if, a la "Angela's Ashes," a well known author had made up an autobiography where he was a poor Irish immigrant with a heavy-drinking father growing up in New York in the middle of the century. I thought that maybe this was some kind of commentary by Mr. Dufresne, perhaps a way of making fun of the currently popular trend of telling the story of "your crazy childhood." That was the only reason I could imagine for making up something so close to what someone else has already described as true. But in reading the book, I couldn't see any kind of real commentary that was being made, and it wasn't really very ironic or funny, so maybe I was wrong about this. I guess I just didn't understand what the point was. As the story goes on, the isolation of the children becomes less engaging and more depressing. Meanwhile, the author begins to insert snatches of images from his present life, often in a kind of stream of consciousness way. In one part we have the author interviewing for a job position in another town, then talking to an old colleague, then imagining what would happen if his dog died, then thinking about the My Lai Massacre, then realizing at the job interview that the job has already been given to someone else, then ordering food with his colleague, then going to some kind of faculty party, etc etc etc. All meaning begins to dissolve as the book continues, and all we are left with are snippets of increasingly sad scenes, with the young author the only bright, sane spot trying to hold everything together. Finally, everything stops and we are completely back in the present day, only to find that all the family members have gone on to lonely or sad or pathetic fates, and that each of them seems to blame the author, for some reason. There were many parts of this book that I didn't understand, but the feelings of the mother and sister toward the author, at the end of the book, were the most inexplicable. It made me wonder if I had missed some significant meaning in the text I'd read so far. Perhaps the book was supposed to work on some level above my understanding, and I will be the first to admit that this is probably the case, but what that level is, or what the meaning is supposed to be, I simply have no idea. Technically, the writing was very good, and the author certainly has an ability to capture moments with feeling and precision. These abilities of Mr. Dufresne are enough to make me want to try another of his books, though I was certainly disappointed with this one.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-05-27 00:00:00 Karl Duerr I loved Dufresne's book on writing and he did follow his own instruction, but this book did not make it. There was some clever dialog and prose but overall it did not capture this reader.