The Burgess Boys

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 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.

The BURGESS BOYS is a journey into the lives of Jim, Bob, and Susan Burgess. They were brothers and sister whose relationship with each other fell apart after their mother died.

THE BURGESS BOYS centered on family, feelings, secrets, lies, and on Zachary's being disrespectful of Somali immigrants which caused problems for the Burgess family who already had many problems of their own. You will feel the tension among the three siblings as they try to solve this dilemma, and you will also see how it brings them closer.

Jim and Bob had become courtroom attorneys with Jim being the more successful one. Bob left the courtroom and went to the appeals court, and Susan is the one who stayed in their hometown and is now burdened with what her son did. She definitely needed her attorney brothers for this situation. She preferred Jim but Bob had to help her with Zachary's problem.

When Bob arrived at his twin sister's house, he didn't like what he found in terms of how Susan lived. He was sure this didn't help with how quiet and withdrawn Zachary seemed. Jim finally did intervene with the courts, and thought he had helped, but he wasn't too happy about helping his sister get her son out of this mess. As usual, Bob was in the middle of it all or completely left out.

The interaction of the main characters was very well done. Bob and Jim definitely were portrayed as rivaling siblings with Jim being the cruel one as he threw barbs and cruel comments at Bob. This wasn't anything different from their childhood, though. Their sister remained the sister in the background.

I enjoyed the great descriptions and well-developed characters Ms. Strout employed, but I wasn't a great fan of the storyline. I really was looking forward to this read and am a bit disappointed. THE BURGESS BOYS seemed to be a bit slow even though it was interesting to learn about the legal system and the life of the Somali people.

The ending focused on the Burgess children as adults thinking about their lives and alluded to the fact that your childhood shapes you as an adult in terms of how you feel about yourself and your life choices. I do have to say THE BURGESS BOYS did touch on some good subjects.

I can't say it was my favorite read, but it wasn't my least favorite. The major problem for me was the type of book it was. I like more of a saga. To me it seemed more like stating facts or a narrative.

The book did get better in the last 100 pages, but to me it still was not that interesting and was a little disorganized. 3/5

This book was given to me from a win on LibraryThing and the publisher without compensation in return for an honest review. ( )

The Burgess family has had its struggles. Jim, Bob and Susan lost their father to a tragic accident when they were just young children living in Shirley Falls, Maine. For years, Bob has lived with the guilt that it was all his fault. Now, since the death of their mother, both Jim and Bob have moved to New York City where Jim is a well-known and wealthy lawyer for a big firm, and Bob works as a Legal Aid attorney. Their relationship is almost one of bullying – with Jim often making degrading comments to Bob, and Bob feeling “less than” his older brother. Susan has remained in Shirley Falls, raising her son Zach alone after her husband left the marriage.

When Zach makes a bad decision, his actions will not only have deep repercussions within his own family, but will mobilize a divided community because Shirley Falls has become home to a group of Somali Muslims. This isolated group has sparked racism, misunderstanding and a kind of righteous indignation among certain townspeople. When Zach’s singular act occurs, Shirley Falls splits into two groups – those who see the Somalis as outsiders, and those who see Zach’s actions as a form of hate crime. As Jim and Bob rally around their family, returning once again to Maine, the deep fissures in their own pasts rise to the surface.

It saddened him, but it seemed far away. But he knew very soon it would not feel far away; the murkiness of Susan and Zachary and Shirley Falls would seep into his apartment the way the emptiness below waited to remind him that his neighbors were no more, that nothing lasts forever, there is nothing to be counted on. – from The Burgess Boys -

Elizabeth Strout’s newest novel is a bit of a psychological study of the cracks that develop within families and communities and the often difficult road to healing and forgiveness after loss and misunderstanding. As with all her work, the characters in The Burgess Boys are exceptionally well developed. She introduces multiple characters and delves below the surface of them all to help the reader gain understanding of their fears, hopes, and disappointments.

Bob becomes the central character in a story about sibling rivalry, family secrets and searching for connection with others. Bob’s divorce from his wife, Pam, haunts him. Even years after their split, he misses her chatter, laughter, and “sharp opinions.” But he largely suffers in silence, portraying himself as the easy going, likeable guy he wants to be. Beneath the surface, however, Bob harbors another loss which he has never really come to terms with – that of his father. For decades he has accepted responsibility for his father’s death and tolerates his older brother’s cruel verbal abuse. By the end of the novel, Bob will be the character who grows the most.

Despite the extraordinary character development, The Burgess Boys fell a little flat for me. All of the characters are living lives of disappointment and unrealized self-actualization. Marriages are unhealthy and sad. Children are isolated and awkward. Friendships are superficial. Siblings struggle to find something to like about each other. Half way through this book, I began to feel the weight of all this despair. I began to long for something, anything, to brighten the pages and insert hope into the story.

In fairness, Strout does, eventually, deliver redemption for her characters and allows for some hope to surface. But for me, that redemption came a little too late in the story. I turned the final page and sighed, thankful that I could leave these characters and their muddled lives behind.

I found the inclusion of the Somali community in this novel interesting. Strout uses it as a catalyst to spark the conflict in her novel – and she makes an effort to tie the conflict to the contemporary themes of racism and fear which have pervaded American society since 9-11. Strout’s efforts in this area were only partially successful for me. In some ways, the inclusion of the Somali struggle felt contrived – an easy way to create conflict in a novel which is really about familial conflict and misunderstanding. But, some readers may find that expanding the horizons of the story adds depth and power to the novel.

Readers who enjoy character driven stories and who have liked Strout’s novels in the past may want to give this one a try. ( )

The backstory: I read Elizabeth Strout's last book, Olive Kitteridge, for book club a few years ago. I liked it, but I didn't love it, mostly because I wanted more of a novel than interconnected stories. I was curious to see how I would far with her latest novel, The Burgess Boys.

The basics: The Burgess Boys is about three adult siblings from Maine. Jim and Bob now live in Brooklyn, but Susan remains in the town where they grew up. When Susan's son Zack gets in trouble, she turns to her brothers for help.

My thoughts: What I liked most about Olive Kitteridge was Olive herself. Strout has a way of developing characters beautifully, and The Burgess Boys begin with detailed glimpses into each of the Burgesses, plus Jim's wife. The set up was glorious. I devoured Strout's writing and character building and could not bear to put this novel down. After all this set up, I was ultimately disappointed. The last half of the book fell flat for me and was laborious to get through. The plot meandered and the characters who seemed so richly developed, complicated and intriguing in the first half became less fascinating and often dull. Although the second half was both unsatisfying and not enjoyable, I still am fond of the first half of this novel. I wish that charm and fascination could have carried through the rest of the novel too.

The verdict: Strout's beautifully detailed prose and richly developed characters weren't enough to salvage the meandering second half of this novel for me. ( )

Imagine a life that has always been defined by one horrific and tragic moment. Imagine a life that has always been overshadowed by the success of a sibling. That is the life of Bob Burgess. Jim Burgess is the older, smarter, and successful brother. Susan Burgess is Bob's twin sister and alone in her own unhappiness. She’s also a divorcee raising her son back in their rural hometown, Shirley Falls, Maine. Bob and Jim have both left Maine and are practicing lawyers residing in New York. Jim has a lovely wife, three children, and a job at a prestigious law firm but is an overbearing and rather obnoxious person . . . especially to his family. Bob is divorced, living alone in a small and empty apartment, childless and works at Legal Aid. Bob adores, if not idolizes his older brother and has for as long as he can remember. That will all change when the Burgess Boys are called back to Maine to help their nephew Zach on a legal matter. (Zach throws a frozen pig's head into a mosque during a prayer service, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan.) When it appears that Zach may be charged federally with a hate crime, he runs away, leaves the country and joins his father in Sweden. Susan is bereft at his departure and must learn to cope with his absence. Bob worries that he may be branded a fugitive and only wants to make things as easy as possible for both Zach and Susan. Jim seems to only care that he has put his neck and reputation on the line. These three differing views on one simple action show the true nature of these siblings.

On the surface The Burgess Boys is about family and what we are willing to do to support our families. Underneath, it is also about family dysfunction and touches on prejudice, racism, narcissism, depression, infidelity, and responsibility. Ms. Strout has presented a story that almost defies explanation due to the simplicity of the heart of the story and the complex interactions among all of the Burgesses, their friends, coworkers and associates. Bob and Jim's relationship suffers and seems to breakdown in the latter half of the book, mirroring other relationship breakdowns due to lies and half-truths. The reader is given a glimpse into the minds of Susan, Bob and Jim, as well as Jim's wife Helen, and Susan's son Zach. More importantly we are also given a glimpse into how things appear from an alternate point of view, that of Abdikarim Ahmed, a Somali refugee and elder in the Muslim community in Shirley Falls. He provides a nice balance to Zach's story.

I didn't find this to be an easy read, nor a particular enjoyable read since it deals with some dark and disturbing issues (depression, alcoholism, prejudice, etc.). The major characters, the Burgess siblings, all have flaws and major issues to overcome. Some flaws and issues are dealt with realistically and others seem a bit contrived. At times, I felt that some of the characters were becoming cartoonish caricatures rather than individuals (namely Jim and Helen). Even with these limitations, I think The Burgess Boys is a story that makes the reader to think. And isn't that what literature is all about? ( )