Such Kindness by Andre Dubus III

Published by W. W. Norton & Company on June 6, 2023

For fans of Siddhartha, Such Kindness is a modern retelling of a personal journey that allows a man to transcend suffering. The narrator achieves a kind of enlightenment by letting go of everything but love. Whether that’s possible is up to the reader (of either book) to decide.

Tom Lowe earned enough credits to acquire two bachelor’s degrees but never managed to graduate with one. That was fine. He was a skilled carpenter and earned a decent living remodeling houses. He was married to Ronnie and had a son named Drew. He wanted to give Ronnie everything but, by working so hard to pay for each day’s acquisitions, he failed to give her what she needed most.

Tom fell from a roof, fracturing his hips and pelvis. He let his insurance lapse shortly before the fall so he couldn’t cover his medical bills. Even before he fell, he was having trouble paying the mortgage. Dealing with excruciating pain, Tom became addicted to opioids, started feeling sorry for himself, and lost everything. Soon after the novel begins, Tom has no job, no car, no telephone, no regular contact with Drew. Even his laptop computer dies, cutting him off from the outside world.

Tom is not to blame for his misfortune. He didn’t ask to become disabled or addicted to pills. His wife could have honored their vows and been supportive instead of making the selfish decision to cheat on him with a man who isn’t disabled. At the same time, Tom knows he was a difficult husband, particularly after he got hooked on opioids. He was a bad father when he encouraged Drew to buy him more pills from a dealer. He’s perceptive enough to wonder whether he would have stayed with his wife if she had become an addict. Andre Dubus III paints Tom in a light that makes it possible for a reader to feel empathy with him while recognizing that his response to misfortune was not ideal.

Now Tom lives in a subsidized apartment near his former home in Cape Ann, a house he built with money he borrowed from a bank before he was subprimed into a foreclosure. He blames his lending officer, Mike Andrews, for talking him into an adjustable rate loan that was adjusted out of his ability to make payments. He blames his insurance company for not covering his medical bills after collecting premiums for years. He has three “revenge folders” on his laptop: banks, insurance, and Big Pharma.

Tom begins the novel with a scheme to steal Andrews’ credit card data, a plan concocted by his neighbor Trina. Trina has two kids from Hell, probably because she’s the mother from Hell. Tom needs money to pay traffic tickets and get his car out of impoundment. He doesn’t want to sell his tools — it would be like selling his penis — but he knows that turning to crime isn’t his best option. One of Tom’s redeeming features is his unwillingness to make money by hurting others, as does Trina’s friend Fitz, who makes money by stealing drugs from a hospital and selling them to addicts.

Tom and Trina’s friend Jamey later debate whether the ends justify the means (Jamey has been crapped on his whole life and feels he’s entitled to take something from credit card companies that can afford the loss). Tom quickly realizes he can’t be that kind of man, no matter how much he resents his banker. He doesn’t want Jamey to be that kind of man either.

The novel features several more conversations, as well as Tom’s introspective musings, about moral issues. Whether people who feel they are better than other people are just fooling themselves. Whether Tom’s reticence about interacting with the world makes him a taker rather than a giver. Whether parents are responsible for their adult children’s failings.

Before the novel’s midway point, after events seem to leave him with no hope at all, Tom has a multi-part epiphany. In part, regretting his disconnect from his adult son, he realizes that his feeling of uselessness as a father nearly killed his love of being a father — a feeling distinct from his love of his son, which never wavered. In part, he realizes that he’s become disconnected not just from his son, but from everything he cares about in the world. In part, he comes to realize that all the neighbors he’s been ignoring have value and that he doesn’t really listen to anyone. In part, he gives new thought to the old adage, “We have to play the hand God gave us.” In part, he comes to understand the need to let go of grievances and self-loathing.

And in large part, he realizes the importance of kindness — to strangers, even to himself. When he starts to notice them, he is surprised by and grateful for every random act of kindness he experiences — a nurse who helps him track down his son, a neighbor who shares a dessert, a beauty shop owner who lets him borrow her phone, a stranger who buys him a bagel. When a woman he barely knows wishes his son well, he is buoyed by the woman’s benevolence.

At times, his appreciation of kind acts seems almost feverish, an overreaction to abandoning the years in which he blamed other people “for the shitty hand I got dealt.” Because of those times, I was preparing myself to conclude that the story of Tom’s journey is just too hard to swallow, too divorced from reality. But by the novel's end, I couldn’t make myself be that cynical. I was sucked into Tom’s journey and ended the novel with nothing but admiration for someone who (believably or not) learns to transcend suffering.

As Tom begins to feel “broke but not so broken,” he gives extensive thought to the notion of happiness. His elderly neighbor tells him that it’s good to be happy, but we shouldn’t want to be happy every day. A physician’s assistant makes him believe that nothing can make someone happier than helping others. When a cop tells him that he should act his age, Tom wonders why others should expect him to want things he no longer regards as important — a job, an intact family, good health. Perhaps Tom is delusional as he thinks about Siddhartha and strives for the inner peace that (supposedly) comes from abandoning all desires, or perhaps he is on his way to Nirvana.

By the end of the novel, Tom is convinced that he can fix other people, make them understand his new perspective on life and use that perspective to find jobs, quit drugs, be better parents. It’s commendable that he wants to help and protect people, but he has clearly set for himself an impossible task. And yet, at the end, with his troubles arguably greater than they have ever been, Tom maintains a serenity that Siddhartha would recognize. It’s nice to imagine that such inner peace is a possibility. If it is, Such Kindness is a roadmap.

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