Such Kindness by Andre Dubus III

 

Tom Lowe, raised in poverty, worked his way up to a good life for his wife and son.  Tom was a contractor and built their house himself.  He had to take out a loan to finish the work and that was his first mistake.  He signed papers for an adjustable mortgage, not understanding what it was and too proud to ask for an explanation.  Then the accident happened.  Tom was working alone, something he would have yelled at his employees for doing.  He was on a roof when he fell, shattering bones and incurring months of hospitals, physical therapy, being bed bound and finally getting addicted to the painkillers he was prescribed. 

Then the consequences arrived.  When the mortgage adjusted upward, Tom and his family lost their house.  His wife found someone else and divorced Tom.  Tom was left in Section 8 housing, living in constant pain after he weaned himself off the drugs.  He drank to dull that pain and blamed the world for his new life.  His car got impounded and he couldn't afford to get it back.  When he tried to sell his tools, his last link to his old life, a neighbor stole them.  Tom was left with nothing and no way to improve his situation.

But then, at rock bottom, he started to see a way.  Instead of counting all his bad luck, he started to look at the world and count the kindnesses.  The hair stylist who let Tom use her phone.  The old lady who invited him in and gave him homemade bread.  A chance to reunite with his son and have some kind of relationship.  Maybe although life would never be the same, it could be bearable.

Andre Dubus III's work is known to many.  His novel, House of Sand and Fog, was a National Book Award finalist and made into a movie.  His own life mirrors that of Tom Lowe.  His father, a professor of literature, left Tom, his mother and three siblings for one of his students.  After that, the family struggled as his mother tried to raise four children on her own.  His father also went through the kind of pain Tom does as he was massively injured when he stopped to help someone on the road and a car plowed into them all.  Dubus lost one leg, lost the use of the other and was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.  

This book is not easy to read.  No matter what Tom tries to do, life continues to come at him hard and fast.  The first half of the book is depressing as more and more things happen to Tom.  Eventually, though, things start to turn around as Tom tries to change the way he relates to the world and to stop blaming others for what he comes to understand where his own mistakes.  He resolves to do the best with what he has been left with and to reach out to others and do what he can to make their lives better.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.