The New York Times – Dwight Garner

Townie is a better, harder book than anything the younger Mr. Dubus has yet written; it pays off on every bet that's been placed on him. It's a sleek muscle car of a memoir that…growls like an amalgam of the best work by Richard Price, Stephen King, Ron Kovic, Breece D'J Pancake and Dennis Lehane, set to the desolate thumping of Bruce Springsteen's "Darkness on the Edge of Town"…Mr. Dubus's prose is clear, supple, unshowy. He gets a lot across with a few words.