NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Includes Elizabeth Strout's never-before-published essay about the
origins of The Burgess Boys NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post •
NPR • Good Housekeeping Elizabeth Strout "animates the ordinary with an astonishing force "
wrote The New Yorker on the publication of her Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge. The San
Francisco Chronicle praised Strout's "magnificent gift for humanizing characters." Now the
acclaimed author returns with a stunning novel as powerful and moving as any work in
contemporary literature. 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 sleek 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. Her lonely
teenage son Zach has gotten himself into a world of trouble and Susan desperately needs
their help. And so the Burgess brothers return to the landscape of their childhood where the
long-buried tensions that have shaped and shadowed their relationship begin to surface in
unexpected ways that will change them forever. With a rare combination of brilliant
storytelling exquisite prose and remarkable insight into character Elizabeth Strout has
brought to life two deeply human protagonists whose struggles and triumphs will resonate with
readers long after they turn the final page. Tender tough-minded loving and deeply
illuminating about the ties that bind us to family and home The Burgess Boys is Elizabeth
Strout's newest and perhaps most astonishing work of literary art. Praise for The Burgess Boys
"What truly makes Strout exceptional . . . is the perfect balance she achieves between the
tides of story and depths of feeling."-Chicago Tribune "Strout's prose propels the story
forward with moments of startlingly poetic clarity."-The New Yorker "Elizabeth Strout's first
two books Abide with Me and Amy and Isabelle were highly thought of and her third Olive
Kitteridge won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. But The Burgess Boys her most recent novel is
her best yet."-The Boston Globe
