The Burgess Boys: A Novel

· Sold by Random House
4.4
24 reviews
Ebook
352
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Olive Kitteridge and My Name is Lucy Barton comes “a portrait of an American community in turmoil that’s as ambitious as Philip Roth’s American Pastoral but more intimate in tone” (Time).

“What truly makes Strout exceptional . . . is the perfect balance she achieves between the tides of story and depths of feeling.”—Chicago Tribune

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Good Housekeeping

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 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 stride. 
 
But their long-standing dynamic is upended when their sister, Susan—the Burgess sibling who stayed behind—urgently calls them home, where the long-buried tensions that have shaped and shadowed the brothers’ relationship begin to surface in unexpected ways that will change them forever.

This edition includes an original essay by Elizabeth Strout about the origins of The Burgess Boys.

Ratings and reviews

4.4
24 reviews
Joan Campbell
October 9, 2015
Accurate reflection of life struggles of mankind and how they are dealt with individually and differently. Book is relevant to our modern day world and the fears and beliefs associated with it.
5 people found this review helpful
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Kate Sullivan
May 24, 2013
Seemingly real characters who do good and bad but are made likeable. Wonderful author.
6 people found this review helpful
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James Bowes
January 23, 2015
Good. Really good.
7 people found this review helpful
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About the author

Elizabeth Strout is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Olive Kitteridge, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Olive, Again, an Oprah’s Book Club pick; Anything Is Possible, winner of the Story Prize; My Name is Lucy Barton, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize; The Burgess Boys, named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post and NPR; Abide with Me, a national bestseller; and Amy and Isabelle, winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the International Dublin Literary Award, and the Orange Prize. Her short stories have been published in a number of magazines, including The New Yorker and O: The Oprah Magazine. Elizabeth Strout lives in New York City.

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