This was a really good read. The family dynamics and disasters stretched throughout the lives of the 3 siblings. Their connections to their town of old and their attitudes and understanding of the Somali community was very well described.
Highly recommended.
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The Burgess Boys Paperback – 1 April 2014
by
Elizabeth Strout
(Author)
Elizabeth Strout (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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The Burgess Boys:From thePulitzer Prize-winning authorof Olive Kitteridge
A stunning story about the tragedies and triumphs of two brothers, from the bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge. Exploring the ties that bind us to family and home, this novel will resonate with readers long after they turn the final page.
‘This is as much a state-of-the-nation novel as one of small-town life. Elizabeth Strout has written a novel that makes you feel: this is what it's like to be alive.’Sunday Times
Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown for New York as soon as they could. Jim, a successful corporate lawyer, has belittled his bighearted brother their whole lives, something that Bob, a legal aid attorney who idolises Jim, has always taken in his stride.
But when their sister desperately calls them back home to Shirley Falls to help her teenage son out of trouble, long-buried tensions begin to surface in unexpected ways that will change them forever.
Praise for Elizabeth Strout
‘Astonishingly good’ Evening Standard
'So good it gave me goosebumps.’Sunday Times
‘Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force.’ The New Yorker
'A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own.' Hilary Mantel
'Strout's prose propels the story forward with moments of startlingly poetic clarity.' The New Yorker
A stunning story about the tragedies and triumphs of two brothers, from the bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge. Exploring the ties that bind us to family and home, this novel will resonate with readers long after they turn the final page.
‘This is as much a state-of-the-nation novel as one of small-town life. Elizabeth Strout has written a novel that makes you feel: this is what it's like to be alive.’Sunday Times
Haunted by the freak accident that killed their father when they were children, Jim and Bob Burgess escaped from their Maine hometown for New York as soon as they could. Jim, a successful corporate lawyer, has belittled his bighearted brother their whole lives, something that Bob, a legal aid attorney who idolises Jim, has always taken in his stride.
But when their sister desperately calls them back home to Shirley Falls to help her teenage son out of trouble, long-buried tensions begin to surface in unexpected ways that will change them forever.
Praise for Elizabeth Strout
‘Astonishingly good’ Evening Standard
'So good it gave me goosebumps.’Sunday Times
‘Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force.’ The New Yorker
'A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own.' Hilary Mantel
'Strout's prose propels the story forward with moments of startlingly poetic clarity.' The New Yorker
- Print length400 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSimon & Schuster UK
- Publication date1 April 2014
- Dimensions13 x 2.2 x 19.9 cm
- ISBN-101471127389
- ISBN-13978-1471127380
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Product description
Review
'Strout's prose propels the story forward with moments of startlingly poetic clarity.' ― The New Yorker on The Burgess Boys
‘As perfect a novel as you will ever read . . . So astonishingly good that I shall be reading it once a year for the foreseeable future and very probably for the rest of my life’ ― Evening Standard on Olive Kitteridge
‘Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force’ ― The New Yorker on Olive Kitteridge
‘Masterfully wrought’ ― Vanity Fair on Olive Kitteridge
‘Strout has a wonderful ability to turn a phrase…[these] pages hold what life puts in: experience, joy, grief, and the sometimes-painful journey to love’ ― Observer on Olive Kitteridge
'I am deeply impressed. Writing of this quality comes from a commitment to listening, from a perfect attunement to the human condition, from an attention to reality so exact that it goes beyond a skill and becomes a virtue. I have never read her before and I knew within a few sentences that here was an artist to value and respect' -- Hillary Mantel on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Strout's best novel yet' -- Ann Pachett on My Name is Lucy Barton
'An exquisite novel... in its careful words and vibrating silences, My Name Is Lucy Barton offers us a rare wealth of emotion, from darkest suffering to - 'I was so happy. Oh, I was happy' - simple joy' ― Claire Messud, New York Times Book Review on My Name is Lucy Barton
'So good I got goosebumps... a masterly novel of family ties by one of America's finest writers' ― Sunday Times on My Name is Lucy Barton
'My Name is Lucy Barton confirms Strout as a powerful storyteller immersed in the nuances of human relationships... Deeply affecting novel...visceral and heartbreaking...If she hadn't already won the Pulitzer for Olive Kitteridge this new novel would surely be a contender' ― Observer on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Hypnotic...yielding a glut of profoundly human truths to do with flight, memory and longing' ― Mail on Sunday on My Name is Lucy Barton
'This is a book you'll want to return to again and again and again' ― Irish Independent on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Slim and spectacular...My Name Is Lucy Barton is smart and cagey in every way. It is both a book of withholdings and a book of great openness and wisdom. It starts with the clean, solid structure and narrative distance of a fairy tale yet becomes more intimate and improvisational, coming close at times to the rawness of autofiction by writers such as Karl Ove Knausgaard and Rachel Cusk. Strout is playing with form here, with ways to get at a story, yet nothing is tentative or haphazard. She is in supreme and magnificent command of this novel at all times....' ― Washington Post on My Name is Lucy Barton
'My Name Is Lucy Barton is a short novel about love, particularly the complicated love between mothers and daughters... It evokes these connections in a style so spare, so pure and so profound the book almost seems to be a kind of scripture or sutra, if a very down-to-earth and unpretentious one' ― Newsday on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Her concise writing is a masterclass in deceptive simplicity...Strout writes with an exacting rhythm, with each word and clause perfectly placed and weighted and each sentence as clear and bracing as grapefruit. It's a small masterpiece' ― Daily Mail on My Name is Lucy Barton
'This short, simple, quiet novel wriggles its way right into your heart and stays there' ― Red on My Name is Lucy Barton
'A beautifully taut novel' ― Guardian on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Agleam with extraordinary psychological insights...delicate, tender but ruthless reveries' ― Sunday Express on My Name is Lucy Barton
'An eerie, compelling novel, its deceptively simple language is a 'slight rush of words' which hold much more than they seem capable of containing...This novel is about the need to create a story we can live with when the real story cannot be told...' ― Financial Times on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Strout uses a different voice herself in this novel: a spare simple one, elegiac in tone that sometimes brings to mind Joan Didion's' ― The Tablet on My Name is Lucy Barton
'An exquisitely written story...a brutally honest, absorbing and emotive read' ― Catholic Universe on My Name is Lucy Barton
'This is a glorious novel, deft, tender and true. Read it' ― Sunday Telegraph on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Honest, intimate and ultimately unforgettable' ― Stylist on My Name is Lucy Barton
'One of those rare, invigorating books that take an apparently familiar world and peer into it with ruthless intimacy, revealing a strange and startling place.' ― The New York Times Book Review on Amy & Isabelle
'A novel of shining integrity and humour' -- Alice Munro on Amy and Isabelle
‘As perfect a novel as you will ever read . . . So astonishingly good that I shall be reading it once a year for the foreseeable future and very probably for the rest of my life’ ― Evening Standard on Olive Kitteridge
‘Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force’ ― The New Yorker on Olive Kitteridge
‘Masterfully wrought’ ― Vanity Fair on Olive Kitteridge
‘Strout has a wonderful ability to turn a phrase…[these] pages hold what life puts in: experience, joy, grief, and the sometimes-painful journey to love’ ― Observer on Olive Kitteridge
'I am deeply impressed. Writing of this quality comes from a commitment to listening, from a perfect attunement to the human condition, from an attention to reality so exact that it goes beyond a skill and becomes a virtue. I have never read her before and I knew within a few sentences that here was an artist to value and respect' -- Hillary Mantel on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Strout's best novel yet' -- Ann Pachett on My Name is Lucy Barton
'An exquisite novel... in its careful words and vibrating silences, My Name Is Lucy Barton offers us a rare wealth of emotion, from darkest suffering to - 'I was so happy. Oh, I was happy' - simple joy' ― Claire Messud, New York Times Book Review on My Name is Lucy Barton
'So good I got goosebumps... a masterly novel of family ties by one of America's finest writers' ― Sunday Times on My Name is Lucy Barton
'My Name is Lucy Barton confirms Strout as a powerful storyteller immersed in the nuances of human relationships... Deeply affecting novel...visceral and heartbreaking...If she hadn't already won the Pulitzer for Olive Kitteridge this new novel would surely be a contender' ― Observer on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Hypnotic...yielding a glut of profoundly human truths to do with flight, memory and longing' ― Mail on Sunday on My Name is Lucy Barton
'This is a book you'll want to return to again and again and again' ― Irish Independent on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Slim and spectacular...My Name Is Lucy Barton is smart and cagey in every way. It is both a book of withholdings and a book of great openness and wisdom. It starts with the clean, solid structure and narrative distance of a fairy tale yet becomes more intimate and improvisational, coming close at times to the rawness of autofiction by writers such as Karl Ove Knausgaard and Rachel Cusk. Strout is playing with form here, with ways to get at a story, yet nothing is tentative or haphazard. She is in supreme and magnificent command of this novel at all times....' ― Washington Post on My Name is Lucy Barton
'My Name Is Lucy Barton is a short novel about love, particularly the complicated love between mothers and daughters... It evokes these connections in a style so spare, so pure and so profound the book almost seems to be a kind of scripture or sutra, if a very down-to-earth and unpretentious one' ― Newsday on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Her concise writing is a masterclass in deceptive simplicity...Strout writes with an exacting rhythm, with each word and clause perfectly placed and weighted and each sentence as clear and bracing as grapefruit. It's a small masterpiece' ― Daily Mail on My Name is Lucy Barton
'This short, simple, quiet novel wriggles its way right into your heart and stays there' ― Red on My Name is Lucy Barton
'A beautifully taut novel' ― Guardian on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Agleam with extraordinary psychological insights...delicate, tender but ruthless reveries' ― Sunday Express on My Name is Lucy Barton
'An eerie, compelling novel, its deceptively simple language is a 'slight rush of words' which hold much more than they seem capable of containing...This novel is about the need to create a story we can live with when the real story cannot be told...' ― Financial Times on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Strout uses a different voice herself in this novel: a spare simple one, elegiac in tone that sometimes brings to mind Joan Didion's' ― The Tablet on My Name is Lucy Barton
'An exquisitely written story...a brutally honest, absorbing and emotive read' ― Catholic Universe on My Name is Lucy Barton
'This is a glorious novel, deft, tender and true. Read it' ― Sunday Telegraph on My Name is Lucy Barton
'Honest, intimate and ultimately unforgettable' ― Stylist on My Name is Lucy Barton
'One of those rare, invigorating books that take an apparently familiar world and peer into it with ruthless intimacy, revealing a strange and startling place.' ― The New York Times Book Review on Amy & Isabelle
'A novel of shining integrity and humour' -- Alice Munro on Amy and Isabelle
About the Author
Elizabeth Strout's tenure as a lawyer (six months) was slightly longer than her career as a stand-up comedian (one night). She has also worked as a bartender, waitress and piano player at bars across the USA. She now teaches literature in New York, where she lives with her husband and daughter.
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Product details
- Publisher : Simon & Schuster UK (1 April 2014)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 400 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1471127389
- ISBN-13 : 978-1471127380
- Dimensions : 13 x 2.2 x 19.9 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 37,029 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 2,264 in Family Saga Fiction (Books)
- 2,681 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- 2,868 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
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Elizabeth Strout is the author of the New York Times bestseller Olive Kitteridge, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; the national bestseller Abide with Me; and Amy and Isabelle, winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in London. She lives in Maine and New York City.
Customer reviews
4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
3,067 global ratings
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To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyses reviews to verify trustworthiness.
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Reviewed in Australia on 14 November 2020
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Reviewed in Australia on 20 May 2015
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While the novel is designed to explore contemporary issues (home, small town America, belonging, immigration etc), I was never captured by the characters in the novel. The novel had a schematic feeling to it: we were told about the characters, rather than shown. And another thing: the novel begins with a first person narrator, but becomes essentially omniscient. We never learn who that narrator is, or why they are interested. Nor are we invited to reflect on that fact or to judge their judgements.
Reviewed in Australia on 5 November 2020
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It was so enjoyable to read this adjunct to Olive Kitteridge, with more masterful characters written by Elizabeth Strout, and glorious story telling about the fabric of family.
Reviewed in Australia on 28 January 2015
Verified Purchase
I enjoyed the book but if didn't hold me a well as Olive did
TOP 500 REVIEWER
NPR's Book podcast swayed me to give this novel a try. Maureen Coorigan's honest but enthusiastic review intrigued rather than disuaded. I loved how she viewed it, "The Burgess Boys is not only a novel — it's a big, floppy, shambling jumble sale of a novel. I mostly loved it because it feels like life: Color it chaotic." The book's flaws actually add texture and richness. It didn't hurt that it reminded me of Richard Russo's work as I am a huge fan.
The sadness and melancholy Strout achieves is finely balanced with whispers of hope and promise. It explores the unresolved and the unsaid. Other themes are prejudice and ignorance that are explored both explicitly and subtlety. Strout ably demonstrates that no one regardless of race, class, age, gender or other identifier holds a monopoly on admirable behaviour.
The sadness and melancholy Strout achieves is finely balanced with whispers of hope and promise. It explores the unresolved and the unsaid. Other themes are prejudice and ignorance that are explored both explicitly and subtlety. Strout ably demonstrates that no one regardless of race, class, age, gender or other identifier holds a monopoly on admirable behaviour.
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Avid Shopper
5.0 out of 5 stars
Compelling story, beautifully written
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 June 2018Verified Purchase
I was pleasantly surprised by The Burgess Boys having been disappointed with Elizabet Strout's much acclaimed 'My Name is Lucy Barton'. The story and the many themes woven through it are really compelling . The author has the uncanny ability to get under the skin and into the heart of so many diverse characters and gives each of them their own voice bringing them completely to life. I cared about each one of them , even the least likeable. The story is expertly told and in essence it's a channel for causing the reader to explore the nature of family and how we rub along together....or not; how our past and our perception of events influences our present and future selves. We also get an insight into the nature of fear in many guises as well as the challenges of colliding cultures. I loved this book - the story and how it is written - and recommend it highly.
8 people found this helpful
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M. Dowden
5.0 out of 5 stars
Families
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 August 2020Verified Purchase
Elizabeth Strout was firing on all cylinders when she wrote this book, which is not only an enjoyable read as such, but also quite thoughtful. Strout once again takes us to Shirley Falls her fictional town in Maine, where the Burgess family grew up. The parents are dead when this starts and only the daughter lives there still, with her twin brother, and her eldest brother, the Burgess boys of the title both living in New York, and both members of the legal profession.
With the sister, Susan having trouble with her teenage son Zach, due to him throwing a pig’s head into the local mosque so both the brothers, Bob and Jim find themselves going back to Shirley Falls. We read a bit of a courtroom drama here then, and the immigrant experience, that of those who have had to flee their own countries due to the troubles going on there, in this case Somalia. Here with a gentle touch the author tries to portray the culture shock and other experiences of these refugees, and of course the shock of the pig’s head being slung into the mosque.
This novel though is more than just that, and indeed Zach is a character who although central to the tale as the catalyst for the family coming together, is not in the story much. As well then as taking in the immigrants and the problems that can occur this is also the tale of families and the interactions between the different members, as well as their lives, with their own families, divorces, children and so on. Each of the Burgess children seem to think that they are responsible for the freak accident that killed their father many years before, and we never really know for sure who is actually the person who caused the unfortunate incident. We read of the difference between small town lives, and those lived in the city and the worry of all parents, as to whether they are bringing their children up properly.
There is therefore a lot to take in with this book which although at times can feel perhaps a bit too gloomy does hold out hope as the main three characters start to re-evaluate their lives and find what is most important to them. Taking in then the plight of refugees, this also takes in the need for understanding amongst us all, the ties that keep friends and families together, and the associated bonds, as well as the mistakes that we can all too easily make in life. This thus makes for a book that would be good for book groups and although perhaps you may not think so due to its length, is really quite meaty in subject matter.
With the sister, Susan having trouble with her teenage son Zach, due to him throwing a pig’s head into the local mosque so both the brothers, Bob and Jim find themselves going back to Shirley Falls. We read a bit of a courtroom drama here then, and the immigrant experience, that of those who have had to flee their own countries due to the troubles going on there, in this case Somalia. Here with a gentle touch the author tries to portray the culture shock and other experiences of these refugees, and of course the shock of the pig’s head being slung into the mosque.
This novel though is more than just that, and indeed Zach is a character who although central to the tale as the catalyst for the family coming together, is not in the story much. As well then as taking in the immigrants and the problems that can occur this is also the tale of families and the interactions between the different members, as well as their lives, with their own families, divorces, children and so on. Each of the Burgess children seem to think that they are responsible for the freak accident that killed their father many years before, and we never really know for sure who is actually the person who caused the unfortunate incident. We read of the difference between small town lives, and those lived in the city and the worry of all parents, as to whether they are bringing their children up properly.
There is therefore a lot to take in with this book which although at times can feel perhaps a bit too gloomy does hold out hope as the main three characters start to re-evaluate their lives and find what is most important to them. Taking in then the plight of refugees, this also takes in the need for understanding amongst us all, the ties that keep friends and families together, and the associated bonds, as well as the mistakes that we can all too easily make in life. This thus makes for a book that would be good for book groups and although perhaps you may not think so due to its length, is really quite meaty in subject matter.
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Alexander Bryce
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excelent
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 March 2021Verified Purchase
Interesting and entertaining family tale of conflict, infidelity, jealousy , success and failure handled with her usual brilliance by Elizabeth Strout.
Not perhaps her best, but anything by her is worth reading
Not perhaps her best, but anything by her is worth reading
3 people found this helpful
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L. S. Tate
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courageous and important
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 June 2018Verified Purchase
Strout is one of the bravest authors I know as well as one of the most gifted. The premise on which she builds this book is daring and risky, tackling head-on the troubling issues of racism and the refugee crisis within the context of small town values in contemporary America. But somehow she creates a great story told with humour and peopled with memorable, flawed but redeemable characters: a family in crisis themselves.
7 people found this helpful
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William Jordan
3.0 out of 5 stars
This novel holds the reader's interest well but is not the equal of the author's other works...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 September 2016Verified Purchase
Jim and Bob Burgess have left Maine as adults and made their way in the legal profession in New York, Jim being much more successful than Bob. They learn, in their 50s that their sister in Maine, who is a lone parent following a divorce 7 years previously, has encountered difficulties with her son who has unaccountably committed a misdemeanour - and there is the possibility of further action against him as the misdemeanour has been directed against an emerging Somali population in the town from which all three Burgess siblings hailed. Meanwhile both Jim and Bob have problems in their personal lives, and the novelist also enters into the lives of the immigrant Somali community.
I found this a novel that held my attention, but I did not feel it was the equal of the other novels I've read by this author. I'd suggest starting with Olive Kittredge or My Name is Lucy Barton. It's admirable that she is trying something new in this novel, particularly in the Somali segments, but I didn't feel it was as successful as what I presume is more familiar material in her other novels.
I found this a novel that held my attention, but I did not feel it was the equal of the other novels I've read by this author. I'd suggest starting with Olive Kittredge or My Name is Lucy Barton. It's admirable that she is trying something new in this novel, particularly in the Somali segments, but I didn't feel it was as successful as what I presume is more familiar material in her other novels.
2 people found this helpful
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