There's so much to love about Elizabeth's Strout's The Burgess Boys. At the heart of the novel is Jim, Bob and Susan Burgess from Maine, all grown up now, either divorced or with a troubled marriage, but still living under the cloud of their father's accidental death when they were very young. Bob did it, by mistake - let the hand brake go, enabling the car they were all in to roll down the hill and run over their father. Or, at least, that is what he thinks. The truth is something they may never know. They were all so young.
I was struck by a simple line in the novel that explains that Bob is 51, tall, and a likeable person. However, he didn't know that. Bob was much more inclined to believe of himself what others told him. Jim, the older brother, had never stopped being the big brother, sarcastic and putting him down. Susan, his twin, disliked him so much that when he comes to help her son she can't even be hospitable. She offers, begrudgingly, to warm up some frozen pizza. (This bowled me over.)
As readers, we come to know the real Bob - a man who has a great deal of generosity of spirit. All their lives they had thought of Jim, the star attorney living in New York City, as the sibling to look up to. But, Strout reminds us in this novel that perception can be an illusion. It's Bob who steps up, once he begins to move out of the shadow of guilt that has plagued him all his life.
I've always been interested in the effects of birth order in families. Most first born children feel some burden of responsibility and those born later can experience the freedom of having another child take on that responsibility, so that they can do something more creative. Or, younger children can feel that they don't measure up to the first born child. We bought a second hand car from a man whilst living in Connecticut and I remember him telling me that his sister had never forgiven him for being born. It can go so many ways. Yet, the facts remain that it's those first relationships in life that stay with us; give us succor at the same time as they manipulate us to thinking about ourselves and our siblings in particular ways.
I do wonder if a very difficult childhood shared with siblings creates some bond that really must be explored at some stage later, in order to make sense of who we are now. Poverty, the loss of a parent, a sibling who has run wild or who was born with a special need can induce feelings that almost can't be expressed, until we are ready, often decades later in life to explore those memories and put them in their proper light.
So much is said in a family without specific words ever being spoken. Parents, can, for example, constantly remark how hard one child works, never mind that the other siblings have been striving with their own goals silently for years. What's the message here? Is there something about the approval of one child's goals over another? Or, one child can be the carer of the parent whilst the other jettisons off to live his own life, rarely seen. And yet, it is the child that stays away that is so often spoken of, or revered. What's the parent really saying? Some things are too hard to say. Some things are said carelessly. But, every word leaves it mark. Of this we can be sure.
In large measure, The Burgess Boys is about every day life. Some things do happen, but in many ways it is about how one moment leads to the next and the next and then something stagnates or changes, the situation transforms into something else. Every moment of life actually has a variety of options. We can choose to be kind or cold. We can choose to talk or to stay silent. We can choose to help or hinder; to be positive or negative. All of these choices tend to be affected by what others say and do as well. So, it's a melting pot really and what happens next is anybody's guess. It can look 'everyday' but the choices are infinite.
I think the really outstanding aspect of the novel is that I began the novel not finding any of the characters all that interesting and likeable and I ended the book grateful that some issues in their lives had been resolved and that all was, fundamentally, well for them. I closed the book after reading the last page pleased for them, happy that they were growing into themselves. I wished them well.
This morning, I heard Strout in an interview and she said that the characters had "gone" for her now but that she believed that they lived on in the readers' world, giving to them what they needed. She said she wrote with that voice in mind; that the characters and scenarios she created were for those readers who needed them at that time in their lives. I believe, and have always believed, that when we are ready for things, truths, they come to us. We make sense of the material. For many people, life has no purpose, but when there is so much to learn, as there is, life always has purpose.
I was struck by a simple line in the novel that explains that Bob is 51, tall, and a likeable person. However, he didn't know that. Bob was much more inclined to believe of himself what others told him. Jim, the older brother, had never stopped being the big brother, sarcastic and putting him down. Susan, his twin, disliked him so much that when he comes to help her son she can't even be hospitable. She offers, begrudgingly, to warm up some frozen pizza. (This bowled me over.)
As readers, we come to know the real Bob - a man who has a great deal of generosity of spirit. All their lives they had thought of Jim, the star attorney living in New York City, as the sibling to look up to. But, Strout reminds us in this novel that perception can be an illusion. It's Bob who steps up, once he begins to move out of the shadow of guilt that has plagued him all his life.
I've always been interested in the effects of birth order in families. Most first born children feel some burden of responsibility and those born later can experience the freedom of having another child take on that responsibility, so that they can do something more creative. Or, younger children can feel that they don't measure up to the first born child. We bought a second hand car from a man whilst living in Connecticut and I remember him telling me that his sister had never forgiven him for being born. It can go so many ways. Yet, the facts remain that it's those first relationships in life that stay with us; give us succor at the same time as they manipulate us to thinking about ourselves and our siblings in particular ways.
I do wonder if a very difficult childhood shared with siblings creates some bond that really must be explored at some stage later, in order to make sense of who we are now. Poverty, the loss of a parent, a sibling who has run wild or who was born with a special need can induce feelings that almost can't be expressed, until we are ready, often decades later in life to explore those memories and put them in their proper light.
So much is said in a family without specific words ever being spoken. Parents, can, for example, constantly remark how hard one child works, never mind that the other siblings have been striving with their own goals silently for years. What's the message here? Is there something about the approval of one child's goals over another? Or, one child can be the carer of the parent whilst the other jettisons off to live his own life, rarely seen. And yet, it is the child that stays away that is so often spoken of, or revered. What's the parent really saying? Some things are too hard to say. Some things are said carelessly. But, every word leaves it mark. Of this we can be sure.
In large measure, The Burgess Boys is about every day life. Some things do happen, but in many ways it is about how one moment leads to the next and the next and then something stagnates or changes, the situation transforms into something else. Every moment of life actually has a variety of options. We can choose to be kind or cold. We can choose to talk or to stay silent. We can choose to help or hinder; to be positive or negative. All of these choices tend to be affected by what others say and do as well. So, it's a melting pot really and what happens next is anybody's guess. It can look 'everyday' but the choices are infinite.
I think the really outstanding aspect of the novel is that I began the novel not finding any of the characters all that interesting and likeable and I ended the book grateful that some issues in their lives had been resolved and that all was, fundamentally, well for them. I closed the book after reading the last page pleased for them, happy that they were growing into themselves. I wished them well.
This morning, I heard Strout in an interview and she said that the characters had "gone" for her now but that she believed that they lived on in the readers' world, giving to them what they needed. She said she wrote with that voice in mind; that the characters and scenarios she created were for those readers who needed them at that time in their lives. I believe, and have always believed, that when we are ready for things, truths, they come to us. We make sense of the material. For many people, life has no purpose, but when there is so much to learn, as there is, life always has purpose.
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