Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of My Darling Boy by John Dufresne

My Darling Boy by John Dufresne

My Darling Boy

A Novel

by John Dufresne

  • Publishes:
  • Jan 14, 2025, 288 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Known for his tragicomic voice and unforgettable characters, John Dufresne tells the story of Olney, whose beloved son, Cully, collapses into addiction and vanishes into the chaotic netherworld of southern Florida.

Aided by his terminally ill girlfriend and the colorful inhabitants of a local motel―including a doomsday prepper, an ex-nun, a pair of blind twins with an acute sense of smell, and a devoutly Catholic shelter worker―Olney sets out to save his son. Hilarious and devastating in equal measure, My Darling Boy is a hero's quest for our time, a testament to families touched by the opioid crisis, and a remarkable achievement from one of our most talented authors.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

Media reviews not yet available.

This information about My Darling Boy was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

John Dufresne

John Dufresne is the author of twenty-five works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including Louisiana Power and Light and Love Warps the Mind a Little. He lives in Florida, where he teaches writing at Florida International University.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...
  • Book Jacket: My Friends
    My Friends
    by Hisham Matar
    The title of Hisham Matar's My Friends takes on affectionate but mournful tones as its story unfolds...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.