A Kid from Marlboro Road: A Novel

“In A Kid from Marlboro Road Edward Burns perfectly captures a bygone era and sense of place.”

In his new novel, A Kid from Marlboro Road, Edward Burns masterfully portrays the tender and sometimes harsh realities of a working class Irish Catholic family living on Long Island during the 1970s.

Earnestly narrated by a 12-year-old boy, this coming-of-age story will resonate with those wistfully looking back at their own youth. In particular, it will surely ring true for Irish Catholics who spent their boyhoods on Long Island in the seventies under similar circumstances.

A Kid from Marlboro Road will please readers in many ways, not the least of which is how the author captures the sweet, innocent tenor of a boy on the verge of leaving his childhood behind. Kneeney, as his mother affectionately calls him, feels a tinge of sad apprehension about growing older. He also he feels the weight of his mother’s melancholy at the passing of time:

“I’m still an altar boy and even though I hate it and all of my friends have already quit, my mother is making me stay in the cassocks until I go to high school. . . . She just doesn’t want me to grow up, period. And sometimes I don’t want to grow up either because it makes me sad because I can feel myself not wanting to hang out with her the way I used to and I always used to love hanging out with my mom.”

From start to finish A Kid from Marlboro Road will make you smile and laugh out loud as Kneeney gives his perspective on the world around him in a voice that is remarkably genuine:

“. . . I had to write a poem and what made it really suck even worse than a normal poetry assignment was it had to be about Jesus. I go to a Catholic school, by the way: St. Joes. So, this wasn’t the first time I had to figure out words that rhyme with Jesus. Breezes is one of my go-tos. And wheezes. And sneezes. And cheeses. You get the idea. It’s hard. But poems with sneezes and cheeses and wheezes don’t go over too well with the nuns. If you went to a school that had nuns, then you’d know what I’m talking about.”

But this story isn’t just about a boy. It is about an entire family and their history. Through Kneeney’s eyes we follow the strong, gnarly roots that sprouted this Irish family. There are glimpses of his parents’ difficult childhoods, though, like many of that generation, they keep their troubles to themselves. Kneeney’s father explained about sweeping away the things you don’t want to talk about: “As the late Pop McSweeney would say—the rug is there for a reason, so it is.”

In A Kid from Marlboro Road Edward Burns perfectly captures a bygone era and sense of place. Beginning with his grandfather’s wake, Burns paints a vivid picture: “There were cops in uniform and detectives in nice suits. There were old Irish biddies dressed in black who sat quietly praying with their rosary beads and other old Irish biddies who cried out loud. There were the men from the bar where Pop used to drink.”

And the author has a knack for summing up the essence of something with one sentence, as here, when Kneeney’s father explains fluke fishing from their small outboard motorboat in Montauk: “Just find a good drift, kill the engine, drop your line, hit the bottom, crack a beer and wait.”

Small houses and big families, 1957 Chevy Corvettes, Rockaway Beach, five and dimes, Irish bars, baseball games in the street, the Rolling Stones, sneaking a smoke—all brought to life in a small book with a big heart.

With charm reminiscent of Anne of Green Gables and with a voice every bit as engaging as Anne Shirley’s, A Kid from Marlboro Road is a delight.