Think you’ve got it bad with the crazy relatives this Thanksgiving? Check out South Florida author John Dufresne’s novel, Requiem, Mass. Holidays are occasions for dad to pass out, sis to walk the cat in a baby stroller, and mom to pretend her kids are alien replacements. Requiem, Mass. is a classic, codependent tale, with narrator Johnny (who both is and isn’t Dufresne in this deliberately fake memoir) trying to save the family. In the process, he tells everyone else’s story but his own. He tells his mother’s story mostly. And when she’s gone, he focuses on his little sister’s tale. In between, he tells the story of every sad soul whose path he’s ever crosses, delivering thumbnail sketches of the lives of all the characters in his fictionalized hometown.

Character is what fascinates Dufresne. His narrator is always answering the questions: who are these people? and how did they get this way? That may be a defense against turning the same questions on himself. As the narrator’s girlfriend asks when she reads an early draft of the memoir-within-a-novel, “Why the masquerade?” To which Dufresne’s kooky cast and their improbable mishaps respond: Why not? John Dufresne talks with Celeste Fraser Delgado at Miami Book Fair International 2009