"'I want you to know that the way I grew up, I guess I was wired to live small, if that makes any sense. See, I came from people with low expectations. All my life I haven't been able to get past that.'"
I was interested in the book from the beginning, not that I was excited about it before I started it, but about halfway through I got hooked, just couldn't put it down, for many reasons, but first and foremost because it depicts a kind of life many people live that many are unaware of.
Desperate people do desperate things. And you don't know this unless you've been desperate. Oh sure, you might live a life of abundance and know some desperate people, but usually it's those who have less who make bad choices, that they justify somehow, even though from a distance anybody can see what they are doing is wrong, even themselves when they're calm and removed.
Abundance. Andre Dubus III, the author of "Such Kindness," labels these people "abundist." Those who were brought up right, with a safety net, who had expectations, who wanted more. There's a dividing line between those and the rest.
"And also wanting people like this physician's assistant who's clearly an abundist, who reminds me, in fact, of my former brother-in-law Gerard, that this land of ours is full of people who have little to nothing at all. But if someone's raised in abundance, then that person is raised with partial vision."
And you have our country right there.
Forget politics, forget right and left, but do pay attention to income inequality, do pay attention to those who grow up in situations with no guidance, with no support, who don't know the right path because no one ever showed it to them.
Everybody in America should read "Such Kindness," but they won't. Even I was reluctant at first, who wants to read about someone who's lost everything?
I lost everything. But no one believes me, so I won't give a detailed account. But until you're truly broke, you have no idea. You're frozen, you're just waiting for the next bad thing to happen to push you over the edge. You refrain from certain activities for fear of a bad result, ending up even worse than you are today.
Not that I knew anything about all this until it happened. Took me ten years to come back. If I hadn't seen a psychiatrist, who I paid for with a little money I inherited, I'd have never made it back, I wouldn't be here right now.
But you don't believe all this, you don't understand all this, because you're an abundist.
I don't want to blame you, don't want to make you feel bad, you're blind through no fault of your own. Our country is about winners, all the losers are lumped together and ignored, or put down.
But if you read "Such Kindness" you'll understand.
But you won't read it. Because you're looking for something upbeat and entertaining, to take you away from the harsh world we live in.
And that's exactly what I was thinking about when I read this book, how it was completely removed from everything I was seeing on my phone. Everything in the newspaper was separate. What made Andre Dubus III write this book?
It couldn't have been written in a day. Might have even taken years. Dubus wrote a book that most people won't want to read, if they read to begin with. Compare this to our high revenue generating arts, which are based on giving the public what it wants. You don't want to strike out for the wilderness, you don't want to be out there alone searching for the Holy Grail, even though we're all interested if you find it. Well, not everybody. Because too many want it easy, they don't want their construct of life messed with, they don't want to think, to be challenged, to possibly be made to feel worse about themselves.
So Tom...
His mother had him when she was fifteen. But he's gone to college, has enough credits to earn several degrees, but he's never graduated. He makes his money in the construction trade. And he marries an abundist, a Smithie, and things are good, at least on the surface, until he gets caught by an adjustable rate mortgage and then sustains a life-altering injury, falling off a roof.
Tom loses everything. Even worse, he's in constant pain.
Yes, you've got the 2008 crash. And you've got drug addiction. But really you've got people living so far off the grid...that they're in public housing but have no phone, sell their blood, get their food from the public pantry... I know, you're turned off already.
But these people were born behind the eight ball, and then replicate the steps of their forebears without even realizing it.
I had to lay this all out to make you understand what the book is about, but I also know I risk turning you off.
"Such Kindness" is art. It's venturing into the unknown to try and push the envelope, to put a dent in the universe. That's Steve Jobs's term, "a dent in the universe," but somehow that's seen as something physical, something tech, something money-oriented. But what made Steve Jobs different from the rest was his background in the arts. Jobs was a child of the sixties, he loved Bob Dylan, he went to Reed and learned about calligraphy, he went to India in searching of enlightenment. That side of his identity is not as well-detailed. He famously said he was making tools, for you to use, for you to create.
I can't foresee Andre Dubus III paying his bills with "Such Kindness." Maybe his contact was good, he's written successful books in the past, like "House of Sand and Fog," which was made into a successful film with a depressing ending...
As a matter of fact, I didn't really like the ending of "Such Kindness." But that didn't ruin the book for me.
I'm not recommending "Such Kindness" to demonstrate I'm better than you, more of an intellectual, that I even read books. I'm recommending it because I want you to read it. But if you're looking for a recommendation, don't start here.
Don't choose "Such Kindness" for your book club. Because you really don't want to sit around drinking wine talking about losers, you want an upper, not a downer. There's plenty to talk about in "Such Kindness," but most of it goes unsaid in public discourse. But "Such Kindness" is the most accurate portrait of America I've read in years. Screw "Hillbilly Elegy," the rest of the crap written by people with a chip on their shoulder. "Such Kindness" is the real deal, sans pretension, fiction rather than fact, but never forget, fiction is more honest than fact.
You're on your own. I don't want to push you into reading "Such Kindness."
But you should.
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