The Brother Years

June 1, 2020
A determined but pugnacious lower-class family strives to cling to its perch in an upscale suburb. As Willie Brennan, the narrator of Burke's fourth novel, prepares to enter high school, he's feeling ill at ease with his surroundings. He's in open conflict with his smart, athletic, and bullying older brother, Coyle, who delivers regular beatings. His father is a taskmaster to his wife and four children while straining to make ends meet working multiple jobs. And though they're hanging on in Seneca, a wealthy Chicago suburb, Willie receives constant reminders that he belongs to "the weird, poor family in the rich neighborhood." In time, Willie will endure the ostracism and entitlement of his peers, bemoan dad's ill-advised schemes to keep money flowing and maintain peace in the home, and do a stint in juvie. Burke wants to tell this story with a light touch while managing serious themes of class divisions and abuse, a circle he squares by having Willie tell this story from a nostalgic perspective. (The novel opens in 1979.) It's not an entirely effective strategy; the conflict between Willie and Coyle seems to merit a darker treatment, mom and the younger siblings add little to the story, and some incidents are sitcom-simple (the time dad bought a boat, the time dad met Bob Seger...). Willie's character has the virtue of being cleareyed and candid: He thoughtfully recalls how a climactic tennis match revealed just how much a rich kid can get away with and how dad's head-down work ethic blinded him and his children to more complex social dynamics. Willie finishes his sophomore year wiser, if not exactly triumphant: "Almost despite myself, I had learned how to operate in that rich-kid world." It's all rich novel fodder but unevenly executed. A seriocomic coming-of-age story that labors to balance the "serio" and "comic."

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July 1, 2020
In the early 1980s, the four Brennan siblings?Coyle, Willie, Fergus, and Maddy?are growing up poor in an affluent suburb on Chicago's North Shore. They fight relentlessly, often violently, and are egged on by their father, who regularly engages in the beatings as well. The Brennans constantly have to prove themselves to their wealthy peers to earn any semblance of respect. Willie, the second oldest, narrates the story, which follows the family through Coyle's and Willie's high school matriculation. The competition between Coyle and Willie is unmatched: both are fiercely athletic and wickedly smart. One of their main points of contention is Willie's friendship with a group of preppy rich boys that Coyle cannot stand. Even as the story unfolds, Willie can tell that their complicated bond is informing the rest of his life. Burke (Into the Savage Country, 2015) offers a slow-burning meditation on how the nuclear family unit shapes a child's understanding of the world. The novel is sure to overlap fans of Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye with those of Richard Linklater's Boyhood.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

August 10, 2020
Burke’s lackluster latest (after Into the Savage Country) follows Willie Brennan through his teen years as he deals with his overbearing brother, Coyle, and their father, who clawed his way up from poverty on the South Side of Chicago to the North Side, where he expects gratitude and obedience. In 1979, the Brennans live in a wealthy neighborhood’s smallest house, where they are outcasts with their home-cut hair and paperboy father, who works five other jobs. The father imposes his “methods” on the four children, a series of self-improvements that have the kids up at three a.m. on school days to deliver papers, followed by an hour of calisthenics before the first bell. Willie, the second-oldest and about to begin high school, struggles with the family dynamics. When they were younger, Coyle had followed his father’s instructions to a T, but after Coyle turned 13 he became rebellious, refusing to cut his hair and hanging out with the “burnouts.” After Willie tells on Coyle for fighting at school, the two brothers’ relationship ruptures and Willie grapples with the question of whether words are more effective than violence. Burke does an admirable job of creating three-dimensional characters and exploring complicated family dynamics, but they’re not enough to buoy Willie’s stale, nostalgic narration. Hopefully, Burke will return to form next time.