Requiem, Mass. had me from the start. There’s the title, of course; a Requieum Mass is part of a funeral service in which the congregation prays for the peace of the soul of the deceased. In Dufresne’s novel, Requiem may stand in for the author’s hometown of Worcester; it’s also wonderfully emblematic of the “death” of young Johnny’s family, and his attempts to resuscitate it. Think of it, there could be an entire series of these: High, Mass., Low, Mass., Nuptial, Mass., Votive, Mass.; each faux city or town could be populated with Dufresne’s quirky characters and so-extraordinary-it-could-be-true situations.

If the title alone isn’t enough to convince you to pick it up, take a look at the cover photo. Not only is Prozac symbolically nestled among the kitchen canisters of sugar, flour, and coffee, it also gets the largest container. Between the double-entrendre title and the clever cover picture, you know this is not going to be a “one big happy family” kind of story.

Johnny narrates the tale, looking back from the present day; or, rather, from three years ahead of the present day. We find that Johnny is an unreliable narrator, and that is part of his charm.

Not much is as it appears to be in Johnny’s family in Requiem; least of all, the very definition of family. As his mother, Frances, descends deeper and deeper into a manic state, she claims that Johnny and Audrey are impostors and wonders where her real children are. Since their father is often on the road and unable to help them, the two children concoct a ruse of staying with friends, and create an entire storyline for this fictional family. True neighbors, in the apartment below (colorful characters named Red, Violet, Blackie, and Garnet), run interference on behalf of Johnny and Audrey.

Dufresne neatly balances the darkness of Frances’ illness with moments of levity. Neither emotion runs to extremes; I wasn’t sobbing with sorrow or laughing hysterically, simply appreciating a creatively told story. Sometimes the telling meanders into unexplored alleys or briefly visits characters that we meet only the one time. I liked that Dufresne wove these seemingly disparate scenes into the overall fabric of Requiem, Mass., these embellishments added to Johnny’s personality and helped the reader to understand what shaped him.

Is Johnny the author, John Dufresne? Is Requiem really the city of Worcester, Massachusetts? Dufresne addresses these questions in a note in the Reading Group Guide at the back of the Norton paperback:

" I wanted to write a story about two chidren trying to survive their difficult childhoods, and I wanted to play with the forms of fiction and memoir. Fiction is telling the truth; memoir is telling the facts, and facts are subject to interpretation. … So I hit on the idea of letting Johnny, the narrator, a fiction writer himself, and my alter ego, I suppose, … write a memoir, and I let him know that he could appropriate any of my memories as his own, and no one would be any the wiser. Johnny writes about how he came to save his family, only to lose them again, and I write about Johnny coming to understand his past and in so doing come to understand my own. At least a little bit."

full review at http://www.sheistoofondofbooks.com/20...
She is Too Fond of Books ( )

I enjoyed this pretty thoroughly. Great mix of quirky and dark. The ending was somewhat unsatisfying and yet it suited the book so well, it was difficult to wish it had ended otherwise. This was the first book I have read by Mr. Dufresne and I am definitely interested in reading more. ( )

It’s a story about a functioning dysfunctional family. It’s not a downer because it deals more with how they cope and even tho I didn’t expect it, the ending was somewhat uplifting. It’s chock full of small but wonderful moments –some funny, others sad.
I almost didn’t read it because the cover flap made it seem (incorrectly) like the characters were “zany”. It didn’t say “zany”. I always stay away from “zany” and “hilarious”. ( )

A complex, and ultimately satisfying, interweaving of rich, distinctive characters, time periods, and places. It is, above all, a story about people and is filled with some gems. Finely hewn characters and observations that stop you in your tracks arise throughout. ( )

This book initially seems like one that we've seen a million times before -- the narrator had a troubled, and yet hilarious, youth growing up in a crazy family that ultimately loved one another even though they were falling apart. Dufresne likes to play the "is it a memoir or is it fiction" game and so the narrator, naturally, is also the author of the book. But is the author the narrator? And does it matter?

A nice balance to the childhood memories in this book is a peak at the narrator's present day life. I actually liked these sections a little better than the crazy family stuff -- in them the narrator seemed more real, and less like an entertainer trying to distance himself from his childhood by making fun of it. Of course, the childhood sections are also very readable and often quite funny -- but without the present day action to temper them, the book would be exhausting and a little too light.

I liked this book overall (except for the ending which I liked, but felt was a little forced). And if you are a fan of the crazy childhood memoir/fiction genre, I don't think you will be disappointed.

[full review here: http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2008/09...] ( )