Best-selling author to talk online about the domestic abuse that runs through so many of his books
Andre Dubus lll is the October guest of the Finding Our Voices Women’s Online Book Club during Domestic Abuse Awareness Month. The event is free and open to women everywhere, whether or not they identify as survivors of domestic abuse.
The Tuesday, Oct. 8 6-7:30 p.m. online discussion will be about the domestic abuse that runs through an uncanny number of Dubus’s books. These include his 1999 novel “House of Sand and Fog” which was an Oprah Book Club selection and made into an Academy Award-nominated movie, his acclaimed memoir “Townie” and novels spanning 2013’s novella collection “Dirty Love”, 2019’s “Gone So Long” and last year’s “Such Kindness”.
Patrisha McLean, CEO and founder of Finding Our Voices, said she became an Dubus lll fan a few months ago after picking up “Dirty Love” because of the title and as she read through his oeuvre was astounded to discover the domestic violence running through book after book. She said his response when she emailed an invitation to join the survivor-powered nonprofit’s book club discussion was, “I respect deeply the important work you’re doing, and my answer is an absolute yes.”
McLean said another Finding Our Voices link with the author beyond the domestic abuse he writes about is that the nonprofit’s Chief of Staff Mary Kamradt was aided in her own escape from a violent ex-husband nine years by the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center in Massachusetts, of which Andre’s sister Suzanne Dubus is CEO.
The Finding Our Voices book club has met six times a year for three years over Zoom through the book club’s site, according to McLean, and is “one of the many ways we are opening eyes, minds, and hearts to the domestic abuse all around us.” She said the book club is a way for women outside of Maine to join Finding Our Voices, with participants signing on from as far away as South America. The domestic abuse in the club’s book selections is often not apparent from the book jacket or general publicity. For instance, the group discussed a series on cults because of the similarity to cults and domestic abuse.
The author usually joins the group’s book discussions, with past participants including Michelle Horton with “Dear Sister” about Nikki Addimando sentenced to a long prison term for killing her abusive husband; Kate Moore who joined from the U.K. with “The Women They Could Not Silence” and Sarah Perry with “After the Eclipse” about her mother who was murdered in Bridgton.
Print: A Bookstore in Portland is continuing its collaboration with the Finding Our Voices Book Club by offering a 20 percent discount on seven Dubus lll books by using the coupon code “FOV2024” at checkout on this page of their website https://www.printbookstore.com/finding-our-voices-book-club.
Women can register to join the book club at https://bookclubs.com/finding-our-voices/join/.
Finding Our Voices is the survivor-powered nonprofit breaking the silence of domestic abuse across Maine with groundbreaking programs educating the general public as well as providing a sisterly hand-up to women survivors, and helping to keep their children and pets safe as well. The group’s programs include a Get Out Stay Out Fund that in three years has disbursed $250,000; access to free dental care; a weekly online support group; and the Finding Our Voices Club in the women’s unit of the Maine Correctional Center. Patrisha also hosts the Podcast “Let’s Talk About It” that features conversations with survivors of domestic abuse and can be accessed across all Podcast platforms. For more information visit https://findingourvoices.net.
