The Burgess Boys

THE BURGESS BOYS

by Elizabeth Strout

 

Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2015, Women's Prize Longlist 2014

 

Date Read: June 23, 2013

 

Two brothers' lives are irrevocably altered when their 19-year-old nephew is embroiled in a scandal of his own making. 

 

Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown of Shirley Falls for New York City as soon as they possibly could. Jim, a sleek, successful corporate lawyer, has belittled his bighearted brother their whole lives, and Bob, a legal aid attorney who idolizes Jim, has always taken it in his stride. 

 

Their long-standing dynamic is upended when their sister, Susan - the sibling who stayed behind - urgently calls them home. Her lonely teenage son, Zach, has landed himself into a world of trouble, and Susan desperately needs their help. And so the Burgess brothers return to the landscape of their childhood, where the long-buried tensions that have shaped and shadowed their relationship begin to surface in unexpected ways that will change them forever. 

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