John Dufresne’s My Darling Boy Shows a Seedier Side of South Florida | New Times Broward-Palm Beach
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A True South Florida Story Inspired John Dufresne’s New Novel, My Darling Boy

"The most literary place I've ever lived is right here, " the author and FIU professor tells New Times.
Image: John Dufresne is the author of My Darling Boy, a new novel based in South Florida.
John Dufresne is the author of My Darling Boy, a new novel based in South Florida. Photo by Gary L. Kravit
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When writer John Dufresne moved to South Florida more than three decades ago, he instantly knew the region would inspire his work. "Everyone down here loves to tell stories. I knew there was a lot of material in this new world," he tells New Times over the phone. "Place is very important in fiction. It shapes what the character can do."   

And so it became mandatory that his newest novel, My Darling Boy, be set in his home of the last 35 years. He describes the book as the quest of a father trying to find his opioid-addicted son. "It's a father-son story. I've always been a sucker for those since Abraham and Isaac in the Bible. I've been a father, and I've been a son, so I love playing with that whole notion."

The seeds for the book began ten years ago with a newspaper article Dufresne read in The Sun-Sentinel. "It was about a couple getting married in Hollywood. She had a terminal disease, and he married her anyway. The book ended up being about something else, but that's still in there. I always like to think every character in a book could be the star of their own book. Even if I don't get to write it, I like to suggest it."

The words for the nearly 300-page novel came in fits and starts over the last decade. "It didn't all come out steady. I wrote some nonfiction while writing it and edited a book on flash fiction."

The most time-consuming process was revising the novel, a practice he preaches to his creative writing students at Florida International University. "Revision is so important in writing. You'll rarely ever get it right the first time."

Among the revisions he made were a far more hopeful ending and the very title the book now carries. "Every chapter in the book is named after a song lyric. The original title was Olney the Lonely. The main character's name is Olney. It was a play on the Roy Orbison song. But we thought it was too gimmicky. Then it was going to be If I Knew the Way from the Grateful Dead song, 'Ripple.' We finally went with My Darling Boy, from a song by Mark Knopfler."

Readers who are curious to learn more about the book can attend Dufresne's reading at Books & Books on January 25. "I'll read the opening and a couple more short pieces from the book. I think that's long enough. It's probably too long," Dufresne says with a laugh. "I'll take questions from folks who come. I have a kind of home field advantage with it being at Books & Books."

As a longtime educator and organizer of his long-running Friday Night Writers' group, Dufresne knows a wealth of fellow local writers. "That Friday night group has been going on for a lot of years. It has been open to anyone in the community. We'll read each other's work and comment on it. I think we made a list, and over 60 books have been published by writers in that group. That's been very gratifying."

And while My Darling Boy shows a seedier side of South Florida, with its boardinghouses and rehab centers, Dufresne thinks another book could be written about the many writers of the 305. "The most literary place I've ever lived is right here. The writing community I got into with my students, my colleagues — and then there's the [Miami] Book Fair every year. I don't like the traffic here, but other than that, this is a welcoming place that makes it easy to be a writer."

An Afternoon with John Dufresne. 5 p.m. Saturday, January 25, at Books & Books, 265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables; Admission is free with RSVP via eventbrite.com.