Boy from the North Country

A Novel

De: Sam Sussman

Narrado por: Sam Sussman

“Come for the riveting father-son mystery, stay for the most beautiful and moving mother-son story in recent memory.”—Kirkus (starred review)

“Sussman’s searingly tender debut novel… will be required reading for Dylanologists eager to see yet another side of their idol, but the heart of the story is the ferocious bond between a mother and son.”—Library Journal

A son returns home to his dying mother to discover the astonishing truth of his origins and the secrets of a woman whose life and wisdom he is only beginning to understand

When Evan, twenty-six, is suddenly called home from his life abroad 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 his mother is dying. He still 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 the secrets of his mother’s life before he was born or what drove her to leave New York City for a completely different existence.

In this deeply moving debut novel, Sam Sussman writes one of the most tender and intimate mother-son relationships of our era. Caring for his mother as her illness 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.

Inspired by the author’s own uncertain celebrity paternity, 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.

©2025 Sam Sussman (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Boy From the North Country is as much fable as it is autobiography. . . . A tale of the uncanny, of the public figure hidden inside a private life, of fame woven into a family romance.”—Tablet, Required Reading

“[Sussman] magicks this material into a gorgeous, emotionally thrilling first-person novel . . . The love that swells beneath this scene, and every scene, will just about knock you over . . . Come for the riveting father-son mystery, stay for the most beautiful and moving mother-son story in recent memory.”—Kirkus (starred review)

“Sussman’s searingly tender debut novel . . . will be required reading for Dylanologists eager to see yet another side of their idol, but the heart of the story is the ferocious bond between a mother and son.”—Library Journal

profound and beautiful

I love everything about this book. I have nothing but respect and admiration for the writer and his mother.

A true love story

A true love story between a mother and son. In the end it only mattered who was there.

So many levels of terrable!! Poorly structured. Poorly written, SO MUCH REPETITION!!!

The incessant self-flagellation in the story got old very quickly, but on it continued.

Every thought and spoken word are delivered as if they are supremely profound. This is especially true listening to the audio book as read by the author. Annoying!! His mother‘s voice is delivered in whispered tones as if her thoughts are so special that you should lean in and listen carefully.

An exhausting extraction of every quilty thought of his actions toward her mother’s love interests stated over and over again throughout the book without ever changing in its delivery, just pure repetition.

No thought toward an economy of words instead, using sentences like.. I got in my car and turned on the ignition and drove to the hospital. Really, we need to know you turned on the ignition? Did you forget to tell us you opened the door and sat down in the drivers seat first? There are many examples of this type of writing.

There are long sub-stories that don’t move the main one forward. Maybe they contain interesting thoughts, but they don’t fit in this book. Sam, save them for some other book.

This would be a great book for students to practice making editing suggestions. It’s ripe with possibilities for drastic improvement.

This book was bought by me for the same reason it will be bought by others. The promise of another Bob Dylan touchstone, another sliver of his life. But it gets old very quickly as you hear every conceivable thought process and every desire in every stage of life to discover if he was the love child of Bob Dylan. And so many of those thought processes repeated incessantly with out new insight throughout the book. So much so that it reads like a most desperate plea for a future response from Bob himself.

Note to Sussman… get an editor for your next book. You will learn a lot.

Conclusion: if you are intreagued by possibly new details of Bob Dylan’s life, read a review of the book and be done with it. You will get those highlights. Yes, it sounds like Sussmans mother had an affair with Dylan. Yes he’s possibly his child. But don’t wait for confirmation as Sussmans mother never does definitely reveal who his father is.