Description

‘Heartbreaking and brilliant’ LILY KING
‘A remarkable novel’ TONY KUSHNER
‘A monumental event for anyone who cares about Dylan’ DAVID YAFFE
‘A debut novel of rare power’ MARIA SEMPLE
‘A pleasure to read’ VIVIAN GORNICK
‘A dazzling book’ AMINATTA FORNA

When Evan, twenty-six, is suddenly called home to the secluded farmhouse where he was raised by his mother, June, there is so much he does not yet know. He doesn’t know the extent of his mother’s illness. He doesn’t know the identity of his biological father or the elusive story of his mother’s creatively intense, emotionally turbulent romance with Bob Dylan, whom Evan reveres as an artist and whom strangers have long insisted he resembles. He doesn’t know what drove his mother to leave New York City for a completely different existence.

In this deeply moving debut novel, inspired by the author’s own uncertain celebrity paternity, Sam Sussman writes one of the most tender and intimate mother-son relationships of our era. Caring for his mother as her condition worsens, and as she begins to tell him truths he has waited so long to hear, Evan comes to understand the startling gift this extraordinary woman has bequeathed him. Boy from the North Country is an emotionally searing meditation on the most essential human themes: loss, healing, memory and the redemptive power of love.

Publisher Review

Vulnerable, intimate, and simultaneously heartwarming and heart-wrenching * Daily Mail * Dylan obsessives who gravitate to the book in search of insight into his genius – and oddness – will not be disappointed — Sean O’Hagan * Observer * The portrayal of June’s decline as she tries to shield her son from her terminal diagnosis is both tender and gripping * Telegraph * [Sussman’s] prose in the novel has a journalistic precision, elevated by the grace of his language and the depth of his connection to the parent who raised him * Independent * A moving portrayal exploring intimacy, vulnerability and loss…a lyrical and evocative work of autofiction * Buzz magazine * Come for the riveting father-son mystery, stay for the most beautiful and moving mother-son story in recent memory * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) * A rare combination of boldface intrigue and profound emotion * Oprah Daily * Gorgeous…At the novel’s heart, though, is Sussman’s intense portrait of a mother and son’s emotional bond. It’s a stunner. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) * I was blindsided by this astonishing, and deeply moving debut. An intimate portrait of Dylan as a young man, and a powerful reckoning between mother and son, Boy from the North Country is heartbreaking and brilliant — Lily King, author of HEART THE LOVER A remarkable novel. It’s a penetratingly observed exploration of loss and grief, healing and mortality, theology, philosophy and, above all, art — Tony Kushner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ANGELS IN AMERICA Boy from the North Country reveals Bob Dylan at his most alive and inspired, as you have never seen him before. This book is a monumental event for anyone who cares about Dylan. More meaningfully, the book transforms into an emotionally moving story of what it means to love a mother and be a son — David Yaffe, author of BOB DYLAN: LIKE A COMPLETE UNKNOWN A debut novel of rare power…Tragic and redemptive, poetic and provocative, this novel held me breathless at every turn. Sussman is a writer of many gifts — Maria Semple, author of WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE? This novel has a haunting story to tell, and it tells it beautifully. It was a pleasure to read — Vivian Gornick, author of THE ODD WOMAN AND THE CITY A dazzling book that promises everything and delivers more…a beautifully written, emotionally nuanced portrait of a woman in all her complexity and courage — Aminatta Forna, author of HAPPINESS