The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout

This one stirred my waters. It rattled my tree and wibbled my wibbly thing. I almost had flashbacks!

It starts in a normal Strouty sort of way with nice conversations and people reminiscing about times past, but before I had time to get too settled, along came a teenager who, in the way that only teenagers seem to be able to do, did something so mindlessly stupid that everyone in the family got caught up in the fall-out.

If you have not had occasion to try raising a teenager, you may not realise that they have a lot in common with unexploded bombs. You think you know what you are doing as you navigate them towards the relative safety of adulthood (I mean, you know you need to try and keep them at a constant temperature and not hit them with heavy objects), but sometimes one of them will just blow! If you are lucky it will just be the family car they take out, but they have potential for a lot of collateral damage.

After the boy in the book has carried out his mindlessly stupid act, Elizabeth Strout begins to pick apart the possible reasons why a young person would behave in such a way, and it is done so well that you get to look at the situation from all sides. Of course, everyone blames the mother first (no really, I'm fine just give me a moment), but what about dad and the wider family? Do we carry baggage that we transfer to our children? Do we only expect perfection from our children?

So many questions to consider but one take-away I got from this book is that whatever your family looks and feels like, the people in it are still your family and that has to count for something - even if they drive you nuts at times.

Comments

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