"The Burgess Boys" by Elizabeth Strout ****

• Early Review edition
• US author
• Originally published 2013
• Folks wanting to be open-minded about immigrants:  "....Just as long as there aren't too many of them....".
• "...The unfurling of an ache so poignant it was almost erotic, this longing, the inner silent gasp as though in the face of something unutterably beautiful, the desire to put his head down on the big loose lap of this town, Shirley Falls.".....loveliest line in the book
• Is Maine really the whitest state in the USA?
• Review:   A very good story about two brothers who must shake off the assumptions of their pasts in order to emotionally survive the present.  The catalyst, the arrest of their unhappy nephew, forces change and the author tells the story well.  The story looks at relationships from multiple perspectives; marital, sibling, parent/child, past and present.  Well done!