545. The Burgess Boys
Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Recommended by:
Author: Elizabeth Strout
Genre: Fiction
320 pages, published Matrch 26, 2013
Reading Format: Book
Summary
The Burgess Boys tells the story of siblings Jim, Bob and Susan Burgess, Susan’s son Zach, Bob’s ex-wife Pam and Jim’s wife Helen. Every member of the Burgess family has grown up under the shadow of a freak accident that killed their father when they were children, an event which has shaped their lives. Bob and Jim escaped their hometown of Shirley Falls, Maine to encamp in New York City where both practiced law, Jim becoming one of the top lawyers in the city and Bob working for a Legal Aid group. While he revels in all the trappings of success, Jim constantly belittles his younger, bighearted brother Bob. When teenaged Zach is accused of a hate crime, the entire family rallies to his defense, exposing old fault lines in their relationships and opening new ones.
Quotes
“And it was too late. No one wants to believe something is too late, but it is always becoming too late, and then it is.”
“You have family”, Bob said. “You have a wife who hates you. Kids who are furious with you. A brother and sister who make you insane. And a nephew who used to be kind of a drip but apparently is not so much of a drip now. That’s called family”.”
In case you haven’t noticed, people get hard-hearted against the people they hurt. Because they can’t stand it. Literally. To think we did that to someone. I did that. So we think of all the reasons why it’s okay we did whatever we did.”
“The facts didn’t matter. Their stories mattered, and each of their stories belonged to each of them alone.”
“I wrote the story, but you will bring to it your own experience of life, and some other reader will do the same, and it will become a different story with each reader. I believe that even the time in your life when you read the book will determine how you receive it. Our lives are changing constantly, and therefore not even our own story is always what we think it is.”
“And she learned – freshly, scorchingly – of the privacy of sorrow. It was as though she had been escorted through a door into some large and private club that she had not even known existed. Women who miscarried. Society did not care much for them. It really didn’t. And the women in the club mostly passed each other silently. People outside the club said, “You’ll have another one.”
“So she lay awake at night and at times there was a curious peacefulness to this, the darkness warm as though the deep violet duvet held its color unseen, wrapping around Pam some soothing aspect of her youth, as her mind wandered over a life that felt puzzingly long; she experienced a quiet surprise that so many lifetimes could be fit into one.”
“That happens in hotel rooms, people have bad dreams.”
“No exchange rate for the confidence of youth.”
“It was a sad moment. There are sad moments in life, and this was one of them.”
“Bob was not a young man, and he knew about loss. He knew the quiet that arrived, the blinding force of panic, and he knew that each loss brought with it some odd, barely acknowledged sense of release. He was not an especially contemplative person, and he did not dwell on this. But by October there were many days when the swell of rightness, loose-limbedness, and gentle gravity came to him. It recalled to him being a child, when he found one day he could finally color within the lines.”
“Pam replied that she was too old to worry about being cool, but in fact she did worry about it, and that’s one reason it was always nice to see Bobby, who was so uncool as to inhabit—in Pam’s mind—his own private condominium of coolness.”
“He knew the quiet that arrived, the blinding force of panic, and he knew too that each loss brought with it some odd, barely acknowledged sense of relief.”
“Nothing is what you imagine. Her mind hovered above this simple and alarming thought. The variables were too great, the particularities too distinct, life a flood of translations from the shadow-edged yearnings of the heart to the immutable aspects of the physical world.”
“For most of the nineteen years of Zachary’s life, Susan had done what parents do when their child turns out to be so different from what they’d imagined—which is to pretend, and pretend, with the wretchedness of hope, that he would be all right. Zach would grow into himself. He’d make friends and take part in life. Grow into it, grow out of it … Variations had played in Susan’s mind on sleepless nights. But her mind had also held the dark relentless beat of doubt: He was friendless, he was quiet, he was hesitant in all his actions, his schoolwork barely adequate. Tests showed an IQ above average, no discernible learning disorders—yet the package of Zachness added up to not quite right. And sometimes Susan’s melody of failure crescendoed with the unbearable knowledge: It was her fault.”
“My mother did not like Unitarians; she thought they were atheists who didn’t want to be left out of the fun of Christmas,”
“They say that’s what happens as you get older. You think about the things of your youth.”
“The United States is a country of laws and not men and that we will provide safety to those who come to us for safety.”
My Take
Having previously read and enjoyed Olive Kitteridge and Olive, Again, I was interested in another book by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout. It took me a while to get into The Burgess Boys (which includes characters that overlap with her Olive books), but once I did, I thoroughly enjoyed it. A keen observer of human nature, Strout creates such indelible characters and probes the intracies of their relationships in such a masterful manner that the reader feels an intimacy with them that is rare. I look forward to reading more by this talented and insightful writer.
