The Marlboro Road Gang

In this highly anticpated follow-up to Edward Burns’s celebrated debut novel, A Kid from Marlboro Road, the boy that was twelve in the first installment is now fourteen, spending the dog days of the Long Island summer with his best friends before the start of high school. A newfound freedom thrusts them into the larger world of the town of Valley Stream, and they find it a more dangerous place than they’re prepared for—where fathers can be violent and gangs of older kids beat up younger ones. Loosely based on Burns’s own upbringing, The Marlboro Road Gang captures one boy’s struggle to gain a sense of self amid the chaos of growing up.

“Edward Burns does the impossible here; he stops time, dropping us into the bittersweet days of mix tapes and pool hopping, homemade marinara and his own growing awareness of what’s behind his mother’s sad eyes.”—Kelly Corrigan