A Kid from Marlboro Road: A Novel

An Irish-American family comes to life through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy in this debut novel by actor-filmmaker Ed Burns.

Immigrants and storytellers, lilting voices and Long Island moxie are all part of this colorful Irish-Catholic community at the end of the 1970s.

Our twelve-year-old narrator, an aspiring writer, is at a wake. He takes in the death of his beloved grandfather, Pop, a larger-than-life figure. The overflowing crowd—a sign of a life well lived—comprises sandhogs in their muddy work boots, Irish grandmothers in black dresses, cops in uniform, members of the family deep in mourning. He watches it all, not yet realizing how this Irish American world defines who he is and who he will become. His older brother Tommy has no patience for rules and domesticities, his father is emotionally elsewhere. This boy knows he’s the best thing his mother's got, though her sadness envelops them both.  

In A Kid from Marlboro Road, past and present intermingle as family stories are told and retold. The narrative careens between the prior generation’s colorful sojourns in the Bronx and Hell’s Kitchen and the softer world of Gibson, the town on Long Island where they live now. There are scenes in the Rockaways, at Belmont racetrack, and in Montauk.

Edward Burns’s buoyant first novel is a bildungsroman. Out of one boy’s story a collective warmth emerges, a certain kind of American tale, raucous and joyous.

With eight pages of photographs of some of the people and historical locations that inspired characters and scenes in the novel.

Story Locale:Long Island town of Gibson, Rockaways, at Belmont Race Track, and in Montauk

About the Author

Born in Woodside, Queens and raised on Long Island, EDWARD BURNS has made fourteen feature films as a writer-director-actor and starred in many films, including Saving Private Ryan. Burns’ first film The Brothers McMullen, premiered in competition at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, winning the Grand Jury prize. The film also won "Best First Feature" at the 1996 Independent Spirit Awards. In 2015, he published Independent Ed; an inside look at his two decades as a pioneer in independent filmmaking. A Kid from Marlboro Road is his first novel, based on his childhood memories and the Irish American communities of the Bronx and Long Island. Burns lives in New York City with his wife and two children.

Author Residence: Manhattan, Tribeca, New York City

Author Hometown: Long Island / Woodside, Queens