Elizabeth Strout, The Burgess Boys (New York: Random House, 2013), 320 pages.
Also available on Kindle,
Nook, and audiobook.
Recommended by Sue Dayton
The Burgess Boys is a novel written by Elizabeth Strout who won a
Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for her short story collection Olive Kitteridge.
The Burgess Boys is about two brothers, Jim and Bob Burgess, and their sister
Susan. It takes place in New York City and in the small town of Shirley
Falls, Maine,
where the three siblings grew up and where Susan now lives. Jim and Bob, both lawyers, have an unusual
and contentious relationship. This is in
part because of the death of their father when they were children; a death that
may have been caused by one of the children. The brothers live in New York City
and as adults have had minimal contact with Susan. However, when Susan’s teenage son gets in
trouble for what may be a hate crime (based on an actual incident) against the
Somali population in Shirley Falls the brothers return to their hometown to be
of legal and family support to their sister. The family tension and the
haunting memories of their childhood come to the surface as the book unfolds.
Elizabeth Strout is an
amazing storyteller. She has an ability to weave together family, social and
political issues into a great story. I
had the opportunity to hear Strout read from this book and talk about writing
it. I enjoyed The Burgess Boys and Olive
Kitteridge very much and I want to read her first two novels Abide with Me and Amy and Isabelle.
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