The Burgess Boys

by Elizabeth Strout

Paperback, 2014

Status

Available

Description

Catalyzed by a nephew's thoughtless prank, a pair of brothers confront painful psychological issues surrounding the freak accident that killed their father when they were boys, a loss linked to a heartbreaking deception that shaped their personal and professional lives.

User reviews

LibraryThing member brenzi
Elizabeth Strout has spent a lifetime looking deeply into the human soul. This woman knows people; inside out and upside down. And her depiction of ordinary, everyday people, struggling to keep their lives on an even keel always ends up reminding me of people I know. That’s right, ordinary,
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everyday people. Her latest offering, to be published in March, may be her best yet, no small potatoes considering she’s the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning (and entirely delectable) Olive Kitteridge.

The Burgess Boys, Jim and Bob, and their sister Susan, grew up in the rural Maine town of Shirley Falls. Their father was killed in an accident when they were quite young and they were raised by their widowed mother. Jim went on to a glorious career as a flamboyant corporate attorney while brother Bob ekes out a living as a public advocate. They both have abandoned their simple roots for the excitement of life in New York City. Meanwhile, divorced sister Susan raises her son in Shirley Falls. They are not at all close and the reasons for this are deep-seated and drawn out through the narrative.

What draws them together is a criminal act committed by Susan’s withdrawn and isolated son Zachary, and her call to her brothers for help. They return to their birthplace to find a town torn apart by racial disharmony and a house still holding the secrets of their youth. As they help their sister and Zach they also discover each other’s lives aren’t what they seem, and a secret buried years ago, reveals itself and changes their lives.

Strout is at the top of her game. Her ability to reveal and truly illuminate the things that reverberate within the human heart while, at the same time, exhibiting extraordinary storytelling skills, demonstrates that skill Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member lit_chick
“The Burgess boys rode up the turnpike as twilight arrived. It arrived gently, the sky remaining a soft blue as the trees along either side of the unfolding pavement darkened. Then the sinking sun sent up a spread of lavender and yellow, and the horizon line seemed cracked open to give a peek at
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the heavens far beyond. Thin clouds became pink and stayed that way, until finally darkness emerged, almost complete. The brothers had spoken little ..." (Ch 10)

Growing up in Shirley Falls, rural Maine, the Burgess children, eldest Jim and twins Bob and Susan, suffer a traumatic accident in childhood which results in the loss of a parent. Expectedly, the children all manage the trauma very differently, but its effects follow them into adulthood – and the incident, by tacit agreement, is never acknowledged. Jim becomes the classic over-achiever – class president, athlete, hot-shot criminal attorney. Bob, a public advocate, has a heart which knows no bounds; generous and compassionate to a fault, he is vulnerable, easily hurt, and easily dismissed. And Susan is – afloat, lost. She is the child and also the adult nobody really cares for; “and then she had that nutty son.”

When Zachary, Susan’s teenage son, commits a criminal act, the Burgess boys, both living in New York City these past many years, return to Shirley Falls, the home town only Susan never left, in an effort to support. But the siblings aren’t up to the task – they are solitaries, each floundering for a secure footing in life, despite any appearances to the contrary. As Jim, sharp and cruel, verbalizes, “Everything to do with this family depresses me profoundly." (Ch 10) What’s more, the return to Shirley Falls perpetrates the disclosure of a long-guarded secret about the family’s shared trauma which will change all of their lives.

Strout writes beautifully, as evidenced in the opening quotation, about relatable characters I will not soon forget. She skillfully integrates her central theme here – that search for a place to belong and be safe – into not only the story of The Burgess Boys, but into the immigrant experience and racial friction evidenced in rural Maine. Highly recommended!
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LibraryThing member msf59
This is a story of a Maine family. Twins, Bob and Susan and their older brother Jim. In their early childhood, they witnessed a horrific accident, which killed their father. This link will haunt all three, in various heart-breaking and disturbing ways. Jim and Bob became lawyers and moved to New
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York City. Susan remained behind in Shirley Falls.
When her troubled teenage son is arrested for a “hate crime”, she calls on her brothers to help her. Old wounds are opened and some begin to heal, as the family reluctantly pulls back together.
The prose is strong and deft. Her characters, however frustrating they appear, are well drawn. I do not think it works on the same brilliant level as her last book, “Olive Kitteridge“, maybe something lacks in the storytelling. I still think it’s a good work, just not a great one.
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LibraryThing member tututhefirst
Elizabeth Strout's newest story The Burgess Boys is, if possible, even better than her Pulitzer winning effort Olive Kitteridge.  She based her story on an actual incident that occurred in Lewiston Maine in July 2006 where someone threw a frozen pig's head into a mosque full of worshippers.  The
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perpetrator claimed it was meant to be a joke, and the police treated it as a misdemeanor.

Strout frames her story on the Burgess family - adult brothers Jim and Bob, both attorneys, sister Susan (Bob's twin) and Susan's son Zach who throws the pig. The authorities are determined to bring hate crime charges against Zach. As the issues of assimilating Somali immigrants into the community swirl, and as the family becomes embroiled in resolving deep seated sibling rivalries, ruined marriages, and the different perspectives of various family members: Mainers vs those who are "from away" we get a true picture of life in Maine today.

Jim, a highly successful New York corporate attorney, wants nothing more to do with Maine.  Brother Bob plods away as a public advocate in New York, basking in his brother's light, enjoying family life vicariously through Jim's family, but remaining in touch with his ex-wife.  Neither brother wants to return to Maine, and neither is in close contact with sister Susan who ekes out an existance as a single parent (her ex lives in Sweden) in their hometown of Shirley Falls Maine.  Zach, a recluse and troubled adolescent, inadvertently sets a firestorm of family emotions into action when his actions lead his mother to call on her brothers to help keep Zach out of jail.

Elizabeth Strout has given us an deeply moving portrait of a family dealing with painful and buried memories, of a community dealing with a diversity of cultures unknown to heretofor all white Maine, and of legal issues that can become exacerbated by misunderstanding, lack of knowledge and fear of the unknown.  The characters in this one are even more sharply drawn than those in Olive Kitteridge.  The story is clear, crisp, at times bluntly cruel, but always empathetic towards the feelings and issues swirling around having a large group of "different" people suddenly inserted into a community that was not prepared for them, and for which they (the refugees) were also unprepared.

How the Burgess boys deal with their sister, their painful childhood memories and  their failing marriages, how the community deals with issues of racial, religious and cultural diversity, and how a single mom deals with a troubled teen-ager are inter-woven threads of a magnificent novel.  It's sure to make of the best of the best lists of the year!
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LibraryThing member msbaba
Burgess Boys by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout, is another masterful character-driven novel that will certainly please her fans and earn her further deserved literary acclaim. This book is about the importance of family and community. It is also about those everyday cruelties we
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visit upon those we love not because we want to, but because we cannot stop doing it. We do it because we are just being human. This book provides forgiveness not only for its characters, but also for its readers. Ultimately, this book is about acceptance.

The book takes place in small town Maine and New York City in the present day over the course of less than a year. During that time, we get to know the two main characters intimately: flashy celebrity attorney, Jim Burgess, and his ungainly but kindhearted younger brother, Bob. Both men were raised in (fictional) Shirley Falls, Maine, and escaped to New York City as soon as they could…they never looked back. Never, that is, until the day their sister—still living in their hometown—contacts them desperately needing legal and emotional support with her son. The teenager has managed to get himself in a heap of trouble. The youth thought he was doing a funny prank when he rolled a bloody pig’s head into a mosque filled with local Somali refugees. But the misdemeanor soon escalates into a national incident that Federal prosecutors threaten to treat as a hate crime.

As the two brothers refocus their energies and time to help their sister and her son, their own lives start to unravel. One unexpected turn of events leads to another. Eventually, the whole family finds themselves thrust along on a journey of self-discovery where every member is fully transformed at the end.

What Strout does best in this work is to bring sympathetic awareness and understanding to the complicated emotional landscape of an everyday kind of dysfunctional family. We all know these families. We may, indeed, be part of one. Most families have secrets—things everybody in the family knows, but nobody wants to talk about—and most families unconsciously and liberally distort family history for whatever personal and group ends. Strout captures these realities and more in this magnificent psychological jewel of a novel.

I was hooked after reading merely the prologue! If, after reading these few pages, you are not captivated by Strout’s remarkable literary and story-telling skills, then this book is not for you. If you are looking for a strong plot-driven novel, this is not for you. But if you enjoy slow, psychologically rich novels deep with humanity and radiant with insight into the human condition, this could be one of the books you’ve been searching for.


[Separate from the review: You might be interested to know that the central action (but not the individual nor family) in this novel stems from a real event. In 2006, Brent Matthews, a 33 year-old man from Lewiston, Maine, made national news when he rolled a pig’s head into a city mosque where the new, very large, resident Somali refugee population went to pray. Like the teenager in Strout’s novel, he conceived of his action as a funny prank and had no idea of the how vile it was to their Muslim culture nor how fearfully the Somalis might react. Federal authorities considered filing federal hate-crime charges against Matthews, but ultimately declined to do so. Also, before I read this novel, I was totally unaware of the large Somali migration (especially Bantu Somalis) to the United States and subsequently, once they were in the U.S., to Minneapolis, Wisconsin and Lewiston, Maine.]
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LibraryThing member mckait
This is a story of Bob and Susan Burgess, who as youngsters were known within their family as The Twins, and their older brother Jim. It is really a family like so many, perhaps most others, where things do not work out quite as expected.

First of all, an accident that occurred when they were all
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children, they had been left in the car for a moment, while their father did a quick errand. As children will do, one of them pretended to be driving, and suddenly the car rolled backward killing their father. This of course had a profund effect on the entire family.

The family lived in a town called Shirley Falls in the state of Maine, a state known for its no nonsense approach to most things. Their mother, who was left to raise her children alone, did the best she could. But as all parents know, this is very often, not enough.

Jim and Bob Burgess were both attorneys. They had both left Maine as soon as they possibly could and settled in New York. Through a quirk of fate, as well as a bit of talent Jim found himself the more successful of the two brothers, working in a prestigious firm. Bob was a legal aid attorney who idolized his brother. They both did their best to stay away from Maine, and their sister, who still lived their with her son Zach.

Jim and his wife Helen were scheduled to leave for a trip with another couple. Bob was the one to step up and try to help, even though even he doubted that his help would be sufficient under the circumstances. He was so used to feeling inferior to his brother, Jim that he always compared his life and his decisions to those of his brother and found himself lacking.

Yes, life can turn on a dime, and throughout this story there are many turns, many twists and not a few surprises. I felt that this was an engrossing and interesting read. I also felt that the ending was one of the surprises.
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LibraryThing member lansum
If you’ve ever found yourself going to a family reunion despite your best efforts, coming away from it feeling you shouldn’t have gone, and yet knowing that you’ll go back again next year, you must read Elizabeth Strout. Her books are not like family reunions, but her themes deal with the
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duty, love and mystery that seem to bind families together. She is the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge, and I was lucky enough to be selected as an early reviewer for her newest novel, The Burgess Boys. It’s the fourth book I’ve read by Strout. The others I’ve read are Olive Kitteridge, Amy and Isabelle, and Abide with Me.

The strength of Strout’s writing lies in her true characters. I’ve never visited rural Maine, but if I do, I will look for them because I feel certain that most of them will be there. In The Burgess Boys, Strout adds New York City, not just as a setting, but as a counterbalance to the town of Shirley Falls. There are also some contemporary themes such as the politics of the justice system, and racism, but this book is mostly about the things that continue to draw families together, even when members are cruel to one another.

I liked The Burgess Boys very much, but if you have never read a book by Elizabeth Strout, I would recommend Olive Kitteridge first. Strout seems to be stretching herself just a bit here. The character of Jim Burgess is a little stereotypical, (big bad lawyer) as is her portrayal of the big city as a place where you don’t know people very well. Overall, however, I’ve added Elizabeth Strout to my favorite authors list and am looking forward to whatever she writes next.
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LibraryThing member nancyjune
Although the writing was strong, I found it difficult to empathize with the characters. I really needed to hear Zachary's point of view early on in the story.
LibraryThing member breakingbooks
I tried many times to get into this book, but was unsuccessful. It was very slow and it was difficult keep with the plot. I finally, after 4 months of trying, gave up.
LibraryThing member BookBully
Every time I finish one of Elizabeth Strout's books I'm tempted to pull a "Misery" on her.

I'm referring to Annie Wilkes, the character in Stephen King's book "Misery" who holds her favorite author hostage and forces him to write. Before you call the FBI, let me assure you this is merely a
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compliment to Strout's latest novel, "The Burgess Boys."

Set in both Strout's beloved Maine and New York City, her fourth book centers around three siblings who are united and divided by the premature death of their father. These days Jim, the oldest, is a successful NYC lawyer made more so by a OJ Simpson-like case that he won. His younger brother, Bob, idolizes Jim despite the fact that Jim often makes him a target of ridicule. Bob's twin sister, Susan, still lives in their Maine hometown and it is her son's legal troubles that summons both of her brothers back home.

Strout is the master of creating characters who are riddled with anxieties and faults yet capable of generosity and love. Never obtuse or pat, the people who live in her novels catch our interest as they show what it truly means to be human. In previous novels she's explored the bonds between parent and child, husband and wife. Here Strout focuses on that push-pull relationship that so many of us share with our siblings.

Highly recommended especially for fans of Laurie Colwin and Alice McDermott. And Ms Strout: if you're reading this, please stop and get back to work on your next novel.
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LibraryThing member porch_reader
How do we come to be the people we are? What shapes us? Jim and Bob Burgess are, in part, boys from Shirley Falls, Maine, the town where they grew up. They retain their connection with Shirley Falls through their sister Susan, who never left her hometown and who is now witness to changes in the
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small town, including the arrival of a large number of Somali refugees. But the Burgess Boys were also shaped by early tragic events, including the death of their father, and recent career successes (for Jim) and struggles (for Bob). Although they are both New York City lawyers, their lives couldn't be more different. But as they come together to aid their nephew, who finds himself in legal trouble back in Shirley Falls, the Burgess boys show us that we are not only shaped by our backgrounds and events in our lives, but also by our reactions to them. In Jim and Bob Burgess, Strout has created two complex, flawed, and strikingly real characters whose reactions to a series of unexpected events both reveal and shape who they are. This book is also peopled with a number of supporting characters who add to the rich texture of this beautifully rendered story. I was thrilled to get an early reviewer copy of The Burgess Boys, which will be published in March 26, 2013. Mark your calendars.
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LibraryThing member bostonbibliophile
I just couldn't get into this book. I loved Olive Kitteridge but this one just didn't work for me. I may give it another try at some point but I have to give it a pass for now.
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
I have often read about dysfunctional families but this book provides one of the best examples I have encountered in some time. I previously read and enjoyed Elizabeth Strout's story-like novel, Olive Kitteridge. I enjoyed it in spite of the unlikable title character whose presence held the book
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together, for it was well-written and the vignettes that comprised the book were captivating.

In her follow-up novel, The Burgess Boys, Strout tells a tale of two squabbling brothers who confront their demons, their crumbling love lives and a hate crime case that thrusts them back to their Maine roots. The titular boys of this story are Jim and Bob Burgess who seem to be similar in appearance; both are lawyers who have moved to New York to escape the Maine of their childhood. But under the surface they have very different personalities. Jim is a high-stress trial attorney who’s quick with a cruel rejoinder designed to put people in their place (especially his brother Bob), while Bob has been divorced and works for Legal Aid and can’t shake the guilt of killing his dad in a freak accident as a child.

The two are recalled to Maine when their sister’s son is apprehended for throwing a pig’s head into a mosque. This leads the story into a very contemporary culture-conflict between a large and growing Somali minority who have recently moved into Maine. One of the supporting characters is a Somali cafe owner who is baffled by the arrogance, racism and cruelty of some of the locals. This aspect of the story serves primarily as a catalyst for growing turmoil in the domestic affairs of the Burgess Boys and their sister. The changes in their dysfunctional relationships provide the main action of the novel. It is how you read and interpret these changes that will likely determine your reaction to the novel. Jim and his wife have difficulties that, while interesting, do not depend on the crisis in Maine. Likewise, Jim and Bob's sister, Susan, had difficulties with her husband (he had left her before the events in the novel happened) and a resulting rough relationship with her son even before the incident in the Mosque. Nonetheless the story hangs together fairly well and is bolstered by Strout’s writing which is undeniably graceful and observant. She surely captures the frenetic pace of New York and relative sluggishness of Maine. But her character arrangements often feel contrived, archetypal and predestined; Jim’s in particular becomes a clichéd symbol of an over-inflated ego.

This is a novel that reminded me of the sort of story that you saw in the headlines of yesterday's newspaper, except it is not done as well as Tom Wolfe, for example in Bonfire of the Vanities or his other superb novels. That is not to suggest that Elizabeth Strout does not write with an elegant style and is able to craft an interesting novel of domestic relations.
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LibraryThing member pinkcrayon99
The revealing of one secret can change the life you thought was yours in one moment. It's funny how a tragedy can uproot family skeletons. Siblings Jim, Bob, and Susan Burgess seem to have nothing in common except their last name. There is always this feeling of gloom that hovers over each one of
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them. The Burgess's are scarred but at times also triumphant.

I appreciated Strout's realism throughout the book. The plot never felt fake or over reaching. The Somali narrative became disconnected. It wasn't a total miss but it wasn't weaved in properly. Stout's characters dismissed the Somalis which could easily make the reader do the same. You can honestly forget they were apart of the story.

Each character had a period of introspection during the course of the novel which really brought me to my five star rating. Jim Burgess was put on such a high pedestal by his family and society that if he fell he could only crash and burn. Bob Burgess was grappling with being constantly reminded of his monumental failures that his only comfort was alcohol. Susan Burgess was so confined to her dull lifestyle that she smothered her son and could not recover from her divorce. Helen, Jim's wife, and her privileged lifestyle and thoughts were tiresome to say the least.

If Strout wanted the crime against the Somalis committed by Zach , Susan's son, to be the focal point of the story it was lost early on. This story depicted broken families, relationships, and individuals. There was also some healing and redemption. The ending was fitting.
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LibraryThing member readingwithtea
Jim and Bob Burgess have escaped their Maine upbringing to Manhattan; of the three siblings, only sad single mother Susan is left, struggling with her teenage son Zach. When Zach is caught goading local Muslim Somali refugees, high-powered lawyer Jim won’t give up his exotic holiday and sends
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tender but ineffectual Bob home instead. Old tensions rise unbidden...

This is written in that ethereal style of much successful contemporary literature – vignettes and snapshots of sad lives, tangled by some bizarre event (it takes quite an imagination to leave a frozen pig’s head outside a mosque...). I didn’t like it in A Visit to the Goon Squad, and I didn’t like it here. If you like this style of writing, this book may hold a lot more promise for you because I didn't think it was badly written, I just don't like that style of writing!
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LibraryThing member Bellettres
Jim Burgess was eight years old, and his siblings Susan and Bob were four, when the car they were sitting in was put in gear, hitting and killing their father. No one in the family talks about the accident which occurred forty years before the events of the novel take place, but the way each of
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them thinks about it colors their relationships with each other and with their spouses and children.

This is a novel about so many things: community, racial and religious hatred, small town vs. big city life, but above all, what it means to be a family. Most of the relationships depicted here are dysfunctional, most of the characters are driven by fear, yet they ring amazingly true. The narrative itself skips from one character to the next, probing more or less deeply into the thoughts of each one. Bob and Jim take center stage, as the title suggests, but we're not always sure that we're getting the full picture.

Elizabeth Strout has an incredible gift with language, whether she's describing the Maine countryside or a political rally or a conversation between siblings. While not all of her characters are wholly sympathetic, it is clear that she loves them and wants her readers to know and understand them.

A very good read, expecially strong on human motivations and interactions.
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LibraryThing member kgallagher625
The three Burgess siblings are haunted by an accident early in their childhoods that took their father's life. They are all three still burdened by the fallout from this accident.

The two brothers, Jim and Bob, are both attorneys. Jim is more successful, more flamboyant, and seemingly happier than
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Bob, who quietly idolizes his brother. Their sister Susan, who lives in their hometown in Maine, calls them home when a stupid prank of her son's turns into a huge political and legal nightmare for the family.

Like all of Strout's characters, these siblings are riddled with insecurities and faults. But their humanity is so beautifully rendered that one can only empathize with them. Their clumsiness with each other and the separation and trauma the accident in their childhoods continues to cause are poignant and sad. The tangled and sometimes contentious relationships among all the characters and their conflicting "takes" on each other were at times hilarious, and will be instantly recognizable to anyone with siblings, in-laws, and children.

Although the plot is compelling and interesting, the real treasure is Strout's character depictions, descriptions of city and small town life, and uncannily realistic dialogue.

The resolution was incredibly satisfying.

Reviewing an Elizabeth Strout book is intimidating to me, because I am in awe of her talent and love everything she has written. I expected a lot from this book, and was not disappointed. Highly recommended for all readers.
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LibraryThing member alaskabookworm
Jim and Bob Burgess are brothers, as different as night and day, living mirror-image lives as attorneys in New York City. Having escaped a troubled upbringing in Maine, they are reluctantly drawn back to their home town to help their sister and nephew navigate legal troubles, during which time a
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domino effect of revelations and consequences nearly unhinges the already distant family. But what might destroy them, also has the power to redeem and heal if they allow it.

Strout is remarkable storyteller, as is her ability to draw multifaceted, fully-formed characters. Told from the perspectives of various characters, both major and minor, it is the Burgesses we come to deeply know. It is their experiences and distinctive personalities, that drive this compelling and worthwhile book. While the Burgesses all seem to be firmly ensconced in the lives they’re carved for themselves, what Strout does convincingly is demonstrate that at any point in one’s life, there can be profound change, both good and bad. How we define ourselves and our existence can fundamentally shift, setting a new course in one’s life.
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LibraryThing member annwieland
I love all of Strout's other books, but this one just didn't appeal to me. I didn't like the characters, and I just got so tired of it...
LibraryThing member RochelleJewelShapiro
I reread Strout's Amy and Isabel and Olive Kitterage and was desperate to read her newest book. Am I ever disappointed. It's mostly "telling" and not "showing." We are introduced to a widowed narrator who gossips with her widowed mother about life in Shirley Falls, and inevitably, the Burgess Boys.
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Both characters are lackluster, so why would we go on? The dialogue is insipid. I admire the readers who plodded on to the ending. Me, I'm sorry I bought it.
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LibraryThing member tloeffler
Jim and Bob Burgess are attorneys living in New York City. Jim is a highly successful, well-known corporate lawyer with a wife and children, while divorced and childless Bob works for Legal Aid. Bob idolizes his brother, while Jim is consistently putting him down. Their lives get jumbled when they
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get a call from their sister Susan, who is still living in Shirley Falls, Maine, with her teenaged son, who has gotten himself into big trouble. The Burgess boys go back and do what they can to help Susan and Zach.

Elizabeth Strout is a great storyteller. Her descriptions are spot on, and she builds her story slowly but intensely. Her characters are well-developed, and I found it difficult to put the book down. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member nancenwv
I liked Olive Kitteridge and Amy and Isabelle a lot so I looked forward to another Elisabeth Strout novel. But I found the plot and characters of The Burgess Boys very muddled. I found it irritating and didn't finish it.
LibraryThing member FAR2MANYBOOKS
As a tale of family bonds, no matter how dysfunctional, the book is a fairly good one but there is too much cluttering the text to really get a sense of where the book is headed; very frustrating and eventually a bit predictable. There are some very interesting characters that left you wondering
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and wanting,(Zach, Abdikarim, Margaret, Mrs. Drinkwater) but others who added little to the plot yet took up so much of the text. (Bob’s ex-wife Pam and Jim’s wife Helen)

It was definitely a disappointment when read on the heels of such a fine work as Olive Kitteredge, my favorite book of all time.
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LibraryThing member Mr.Durick
Without anything amounting to scholarly focus I have wondered whether authors can successfully depict the interior lives of characters of the opposite sex. It has seemed to me that authors are successful depicting characters of the opposite sex when they derive their depictions from what they have
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observed, and they fail at it when they try to infer intent and the workings of the mind. In The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout, a book very strong in unveiling character, the author gives us one brother almost entirely from the outside and another brother fairly often from the inside. Both are pretty much believable, but the one captured from the outside cannot be denied whereas the one whose intent seems to be limned sometimes seems slightly effeminate. Now he is a beautiful person, he fits the drama of the story well, and he is drawn in full detail, but the feeling remains that he was written by a woman.

I believe that male authors, mutatis mutandis, have the same problem, and I don't trust them when they try to get inside a woman's head.

I've read three important contemporary novels in the past couple of weeks, and this is the one that has got my attention. I will be looking at these people, as reflections on my own character, for some time to come. What are the doubts we have about how we have lived our lives? Where have our lives come from? How much are we involved with our families? Do our lives come from them? Do we have a duty to them regardless of our relations with them?... The novel by capturing mostly pretty much real and fascinating people brings these questions to life.
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LibraryThing member ErickaS
Based on the flap copy, I expected this story to focus on the inflammatory tale of a young boy, Zach, arrested for throwing a pig's head into a mosque in a small town in Maine, and the racially-divided townspeople's reactions to this hate crime. Strout introduces some Somali characters here, but
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never takes them anywhere, and occasionally drops in mild epithets to explain the complacent attitudes of the Mainers towards the immigrant Somalis, but that's as far as it goes. This aspect of the story just eventually faded into nowhere. Instead, Strout takes a left turn and begins to explore the relationships among Zach's mother, Susan, and her two brothers, Jim and Bob.

The Susan/Jim/Bob dysfunction was mildly interesting, but not nearly as introspective as the relationships explored in Strout's other work. These characters were slightly more one-dimensional: the difficult sister, the ignored but has a heart of gold middle brother, the asshole litigator eldest brother. I didn't really care for any of them. The minor characters were much more fascinating - the Somali refuge, the woman minister who's aims are only vaguely described, Bob's conflicted ex-wife. Those characters would have possibly made a more interesting story than the trio of Maine upper-middle-classers dealing with a long ago family tragedy.

My main complaint with this book? Jim was a self-indulgent, insecure, arrogant asshole and everyone kowtowed to him. Over and over and over again. "It's okay, Jim, we know that you were rude to everyone, but you've had a difficult time keeping up with all your lies. Poor Jim! Come here and give me a hug!"

Kill him, already. Come on, Bob, throw a drink in his face. Kick him out, Susan, and slash his tires. I kept waiting for this to happen and it never did. It left me exhaling at the end with a "that's it?" expression on my face.

If you've never read Strout, start with Olive Kitteridge or Amy and Isabelle. They're both awe-inspiring. Try this one if you're a die-hard fan, as I am. I'll keep reading anything she puts on paper and I'd love to take her out for tea. Call me, Elizabeth, I still love you!

This review is also posted on my book review blog: flyleafunfurled.com
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Awards

Women's Prize for Fiction (Longlist — 2014)
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2015)
Maine Readers' Choice Award (Longlist — 2014)
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