From Publishers Weekly
In a gentle and winning first novel by the author of The Cage Keeper and Other Stories , 17-year-old Leo Suther faces some difficult growing up in the summer of 1967. Leo lives in a small Massachusetts town in the Connecticut River Valley with Jim, his father. This summer, he will learn to play blues harmonica from Jim's best friend, Ryder, and will win and then lose the daughter of a self-proclaimed communist who is, to complicate matters, his boss on a construction crew. Against the distant rumbles of the Vietnam War, Leo comes of age, discovers his late mother's inner life through her diaries, suffers ups and downs in his sometimes confused love for girlfriend Allie and impulsively rushes into a series of dangerous decisions, culminating in his enlistment in the Army. The author makes all these developments entirely believable, and Leo's sometimes rocky but deeply loving relationship with Jim is affecting as well. Like his well-known father of the same name, Dubus is a sympathetic and compassionate chronicler of ordinary lives. He understands the rhythms of hard labor and the needs of the people who do it; the sensitivity and decency of his working-class heroes make them genuinely compelling and likable. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
It's the summer of 1967, and Leo Suther is about to turn 18. It's the time of urban riots and heavy fighting in Vietnam, but all that is far from home for Leo, and even the fantastic pennant race of the nearby Red Sox is less on his mind than Allie Donovan. He's just fallen in love with her, is dreaming about marrying her, and is about to learn she's pregnant. That summer of 1967 holds many discoveries for Leo. He learns about his long-dead mother from her journals and poems; from his boss, Allie's father, a crusading Communist, he learns that there are people willing to sacrifice themselves and their families for their beliefs. He learns too that he has a talent for the blues harmonica and that he has the blues in his soul. Dubus ( Broken Vessels, LJ 7/91) captures well those small, mundane moments upon which lives really turn, and he captures too the enthusiasms and confusions of adolescence confronting adulthood. Recommended for both young adult and adult collections.- Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
A thin-blooded debut novel that follows a young man through the summer of his 18th birthday. Dubus (the story collection The Cage Keeper, 1989) moves through the same New England backwaters as his father and speaks in tones of similar gloom, but without the depth and restraint that this territory demands. Leo Sutter is just beginning to piece things together. Done with school but not ready for college, he works as carpenter by day and plays the blues harmonica by night, and doesn't take the talk of riots and Vietnam very seriously. It's 1967. His girlfriend's father is a Communist and has a lot to say, but Leo is more interested in his own songs and his mother's letters. Although she died when Leo was five, Mrs. Sutter wrote him a sheaf of poems and notes that his father has just turned over, as a kind of inheritance. Here, Leo finds the beginning of his own story--the circumstances that enclose his origin and his fate. Despite some highly melodramatic scenarios, Dubus manages to keep the volume pretty low throughout--too much so, in fact. This is essentially a novel of discovery and change, but we're not shown how the discoveries register or what exactly precipitates the transformation. At the end, Leo goes forth in search of a new life, but it's hard to see a connection between this final departure and what's preceded it. The narrative, as fine as it is, ultimately has a rather hollow ring--and needs badly to encase something more than it has been given. Rather flat and wide of the mark: a disappointment. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
“Affecting…. A gentle and winning first novel…. Dubus is a sympathetic and compassionate chronicler of ordinary lives.”–Publishers Weekly


Review
?Affecting?. A gentle and winning first novel?. Dubus is a sympathetic and compassionate chronicler of ordinary lives.??Publishers Weekly


Book Description
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.


From the Inside Flap
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.


From the Back Cover
“Affecting…. A gentle and winning first novel…. Dubus is a sympathetic and compassionate chronicler of ordinary lives.”–Publishers Weekly

FROM THE PUBLISHER

It is 1967. There's a war going on in Vietnam. In rural Heywood, Massachusetts, white men are playing the blues and eighteen-year-old Leo Suther is writing clumsy lyrics to his girlfriend Allie Donovan. Leo has no intention of going off to war. He has big plans for his life with Allie. Though it's summer vacation now, there is no shortage of teachers for Leo. His father warns him that "life can turn on a dime." His jamming partners introduce him to the beauty of the blues harp. Allie's father, the local communist and civil rights organizer, lectures him on politics. And, of course, Allie herself has much to teach him. However, when Leo's life threatens to come unglued, it is his mother's wisdom he turns to. Though she died before Leo was five, her voice lives on in her diaries and poems, testifying to the strength of her love for her husband and son - a love that can still, years later, offer consolation. In bluesman Andre Dubus III has written a novel of great warmth and charm that evokes a time when America itself was coming of age.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In a gentle and winning first novel by the author of The Cage Keeper and Other Stories , 17-year-old Leo Suther faces some difficult growing up in the summer of 1967. Leo lives in a small Massachusetts town in the Connecticut River Valley with Jim, his father. This summer, he will learn to play blues harmonica from Jim's best friend, Ryder, and will win and then lose the daughter of a self-proclaimed communist who is, to complicate matters, his boss on a construction crew. Against the distant rumbles of the Vietnam War, Leo comes of age, discovers his late mother's inner life through her diaries, suffers ups and downs in his sometimes confused love for girlfriend Allie and impulsively rushes into a series of dangerous decisions, culminating in his enlistment in the Army. The author makes all these developments entirely believable, and Leo's sometimes rocky but deeply loving relationship with Jim is affecting as well. Like his well-known father of the same name, Dubus is a sympathetic and compassionate chronicler of ordinary lives. He understands the rhythms of hard labor and the needs of the people who do it; the sensitivity and decency of his working-class heroes make them genuinely compelling and likable. (May)

Library Journal