The Burgess Boys

Driven by the strange mishap that claimed their father's life while they were young, Jim and Bob Burgess fled Shirley Falls, Maine, for New York City as quickly as they could. Jim, a handsome, successful corporate lawyer, has disparaged his kind brother throughout their lives, but Bob, a Legal Aid lawyer who looks up to Jim, has never let it get to him. However, when their sister Susan—the Burgess sibling who remained behind—urgently summons them home, their long-standing relationship is upended. Zach, her lone teenage son, has gotten himself into a lot of difficulty, and Susan is in tremendous need of their assistance. The Burgess brothers then go back in time to their early years, when long-buried conflicts that have influenced and shaded their relationship start to show in unexpected ways that will permanently alter them.

Through a unique blend of deft narrative, beautiful writing, and exceptional character analysis, Elizabeth Strout has created two very relatable characters, whose challenges and victories will stick with readers long after they put the book down. Elizabeth Strout's most recent and maybe most amazing literary masterpiece, The Burgess Boys, is a tender, tough-minded, compassionate, and profoundly instructive novel about the bonds that link us to family and home.