A Kid from Marlboro Road

July 15, 2024
Memories of the cusp of adolescence, delivered with a strong dose of Irish Catholic storytelling. Filmmaker and actor Burns sketches out the events of a summer during which his fictional (perhaps!) narrator encounters change almost everywhere he looks. The 12-year-old son of Catholic parents who have moved from the city to Gibson, a Long Island suburb, he's painfully aware of the transformation that his older brother, Tommy, underwent when he became a teenager. He fears becoming the same sort of asshole himself. Torn between his strong bond with his parents, particularly his melancholic mother--who notices and rues all signs of change in the family, the neighborhood, the world--and a wish for independence and time with friends, Burns' young raconteur relates family history and personal obstacles, trying to make sense of it all. A grandfather's funeral offers the narrator an opportunity for a trial run at storytelling but the effort is only moderately successful--it wasn't a funny story but he's allowed to stay at the grown-up post-wake festivities anyway. A last-minute effort at writing a poem for religion class has better results and garners approval at school as well as a prize (but also the opportunity to be ridiculed by classmates). A dawning awareness of his mother's unhappiness and a subtle deterioration in his parents' relationship provide the anxious narrator with lessons in what his father refers to as "another blessing of an Irish upbringing": sweeping "all the shit we don't want to talk about" under the rug. Burns succeeds in transcending that tradition while weaving together a series of bittersweet, personal, and wryly humorous episodes into a portrait of the titular kid who grew up on Marlboro Road and must have been the most perceptive person there. An endearing and insightful coming-of-age story.

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July 22, 2024
Filmmaker Burns dips into the Irish American heritage he’s portrayed in such movies as The Brothers McMullen for his bittersweet debut novel (after the memoir Independent Ed). The story revolves around 12-year-old Kneeney’s coming-of-age in 1970s Long Island, where, after his grandfather’s funeral, he slips into his typical summer routine. There are fishing expeditions off Montauk with his stern policeman father and “dick” older brother; beach days at the Rockaways with his family; and endless stories shared by assorted relatives and family friends. Kneeney feels increasingly uneasy about the family’s stability, though, sensing a widening rift between his parents. Before the end of the fateful summer, he’ll face two more funerals, forcing him to accept that the world will break his heart. He finds a way to cope through writing, and after winning the Catholic Daughters of America poetry contest, his father gives him a typewriter and urges him to read Hemingway. Though Burns based this sketchily plotted novel on his family history, the characters are straight out of central casting. Still, there are plenty of touching moments of understated affection between father and son. At its best, Burns’s coming-of-age story suggests a Long Island version of Nick Adams.

August 1, 2024
Filmmaker and actor Burns draws on his Irish American family history and boyhood in his first novel, a tender 1970s tale narrated by a preternaturally observant, caring, and candid boy who recounts the watershed summer leading up to his thirteenth birthday. It begins with the wake for his much-loved maternal grandfather, who helped build the Lincoln Tunnel. Burns gradually widens the lens to encompass the family's immigration from Ireland to New York City and then to Long Island. The narrator's musings on their town's large Irish families crammed into small houses, blue-collar workers, Catholic school, and his surprise poetry award are matched by his worries about his mother, who seems so sad. Why don't his once ebullient parents--his father is a policeman; his mother works at JFK for the FAA--laugh together anymore? He struggles to understand his mother's feeling that everything used to be better. "There's more to life than Marlboro Road," she tells him. Each emotionally precise scene is perfectly framed, the dialogue arresting, and the narrator's reflections funny and poignant as he weighs the past and embraces the present.

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August 23, 2024

DEBUT Actor and filmmaker Burns's coming-of-age novel introduces a narrator who dreads turning 13 at summer's end in 1970s Long Island. Kneeney fears change since his "jerk" teenage brother has long stopped wanting anything to do with their Irish Catholic family. He realizes he's growing up when he understands he's too old to do the things he used to with his mom, who loves going to work but turns melancholic at home. When he's not playing baseball or fishing with his dad, a neighborhood cop, Kneeney writes about his life. He has just earned an A+ for penning a "Jesus poem" at school, along with a trophy from the Catholic Daughters of America, a typewriter from his dad, and a stack of books from his mom. The story begins and ends with Pop McSweeney's funeral, where Kneeney mourns the loss of his grandpa and his childhood. The novel's first-person narration aptly presents a boyhood view of family, tradition, and change. Kneeney repeats things he's heard adults say and explains the world around him. Burns draws his characters from people he knew as a child, giving the novel a memoir-like feel. Backmatter includes several pages of the author's family photos. VERDICT An endearing, nostalgic read.--Alicia Rogers

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