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Bluesman: A Novel
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780375725166
Edition: Reprint
ISBN: 0375725164
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: February 13, 2001
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: February 13, 2001
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Review:
With House of Sand and Fog, his National Book Award-nominated novel, Andre Dubus III demonstrated his mastery of the complexities of character and desire. In this earlier novel he captures a roiling time in American history and the coming-of-age of a boy who must decide between desire, ambition, and duty.In the summer of 1967, Leo Suther has one more year of high school to finish and a lot more to learn. He's in love with the beautiful Allie Donovan who introduces him to her father, Chick — a construction foreman and avowed Communist. Soon Leo finds himself in the midst of a consuming love affair and an intense testing of his political values. Chick's passionate views challenge Leo's perspective on the escalating Vietnam conflict and on just where he stands in relation to the new people in his life. Throughout his — and the nation's — unforgettable "summer of love," Leo is learning the language of the blues, which seem to speak to the mourning he feels for his dead mother, his occasionally distant father, and the youth which is fast giving way to manhood.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - written just well enough to keep you turning the pages...
...but that's about it.
This is one of Dubus' first novels, and it shows. The timelines in the story are inconsistent; details that you expect to have an impact are never mentioned again.
Nevertheless, I read it thru to the dissappointing end.
Rating:  - Heartstrings are played like harmonicas.
I am writing this review fresh off the read....just hugged the book before I tucked it back on my bookshelves. It is my ultimate praise as the book touched my heart so deeply.
"The House of Sand and Fog" is on my top ten list of all time books...high praise given I have read thousands in my lifetime. That said, I love that "Bluesman" has a totally different feel. Our young protaginist, Leo, 18 years old, stands on the precipice of adulthood, being pushed over more quickly by a troubled ... Read More
Rating:  - Coming of age in the Summer of Love
In the summer of 1967, the year he turns 18, Leo Suther learns much in his passage to young adulthood. The lessons themselves are not unusual, but there is nothing wrong in that; this is a small Massachusetts blue-collar town in a time which still had some innocence. Leo falls in love. He starts working in construction, and finds himself good at it. He gets close to his boss (and his girlfriend's father), an idealistic Communist. He comes to a deeper understanding of his own father's love for his mother, ... Read More
Rating: - I finished the book with the hope it would get better. It didn't.
A few years ago I read "House of Sand and Fog" by this author and thought it was great. That's why I was anxious to read this earlier novel of his. From the blurb on the cover I learned it was set in the late 60s, during a time of political turmoil in America. I therefore thought the author would use his talent to bring us back to a time and place that created major changes in the American landscape.
Well, the story IS about young man's coming of age during this period. But it never deals ... Read More
Rating: - What it didn't say, said a lot
Andre Dubus III, writes in a way that is so pointed, yet understated that when I had finished the book, I could appreciate the complete greatness of it. Bluesman is set in 1967 and as any American historian knows, we were, as a country was headed into turmoil. Dubus III takes the time period and manages to capture the innocense of small town values as America was embracing the war in Vietnam and the sexual freedom (awakenings) in America. This view of these issues contrasts the way America looks back at ... Read More
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