Such Kindness

Dubus (Gone So Long) returns with a heartrending account of one man’s desperate quest to retain his sense of goodness under the long shadow of the financial crisis. Fifty-four-year-old carpenter Tom Lowe is near rock bottom. Before the housing crash of 2008, Tom had taken out an adjustable-rate mortgage to finance the construction of a home for his wife and young son. But ballooning mortgage payments, a roofing accident, and a painkiller addiction left him broke in more ways than one. Now, he’s divorced and living alone in subsidized housing. He wants to visit his son, Drew, at college in Amherst, but his car gets impounded for expired plates. To get it back, he begrudgingly lists his carpentry tools for sale on Craigslist, but someone steals them first. The nonlinear narrative of Tom’s ups and downs finds him at one point entertaining a scheme cooked up by his neighbor and only friend, Trina, to steal the credit cards of an elderly woman in their complex, but Tom waffles, earning sour looks from Trina and leading to more soul-searching on his part. As in Dubus’s previous work, the author poignantly portrays his protagonist’s search for redemption, and shows how precarious situations can make people especially vulnerable. There’s a natural free association to the prose, with Tom’s stray thoughts generally leading him to regrets over “reach[ing] for more” than a “two room life,” or wistful memories of Drew before the family fell apart. This is a stirring addition to Dubus’s formidable oeuvre. (June)