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Requiem, Mass. John Dufresne . Norton , $24.95 (352p) ISBN 978-0-393-05790-4
In the latest from Dufresne (Love Warps the Mind a Little) novelist John’s newest manuscript doesn’t impress his girlfriend, Annick, who thinks “it doesn’t breathe.” So he goes back and rewrites it as a memoir: a book within a book. In it, Johnny and Audrey grow up in Requiem, Mass., with their unraveling mother, Frances, who believes her children were replaced by aliens and who bathes in gasoline. Their secretive truck driver father, Rainey, almost certainly has something odd going on down South. The book unfolds like a series of nesting dolls: John meanders around his coastal Florida home, writing his novel, visiting with friends and going on appointments for teaching jobs, while Johnny lives with his mother’s worsening condition, his father’s absences, his mother’s hospitalization and a momentous trip South. Then there are stories within the memoir within the story, including the one a woman tells about her friend, Ginger Rae, who talks of writing a neighbor’s suicide note, then claims it’s part of a story she herself is writing. John is a very amusing unreliable narrator, and Dufresne’s witty, sardonic take on life’s fictions leaps off the page. (July)

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Four-year-old Grace Butterworth’s eyes widened as the Naples 30th annual St. Patrick’s Day parade began strolling down the street Saturday.
Grace, who wore an oversized soft St. Patrick’s hat and a green beard, was among thousands of attendees decked in green enjoying a celebration of traditional Irish fare as 127 community organizations, businesses, school bands and groups marched in the parade, while scrambling to collect candy along 11th Avenue South during the parade.
Grace was at her first parade with her grandmother, Carol McKinnon, a Naples resident, who wore a cloverleaf boa. Grace, her mother, and Grace’s two brothers are visiting from Boston.
Smiling, she watched a clown and others dressed in green travel along the streets of Naples.
From St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Naples, they traveled north on Third Street South, then east on Fifth Avenue South and south on Eighth Street South to Crayton Cove.
In the front of the parade was Naples Mayor Bill Barnett, who said he enjoys the great atmosphere and attends regularly.
“It’s a great day to forget about the economy and all the controversy that you read about in the newspaper,” said Barnett, who wore an oversized green hat. “Today is a day that you are smiling whether you are Irish or not.”

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