The Burgess Boys

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use, mental illness, death, and cursing.

“For years, Bob had lived with the shadow of his not-children appearing before him. Earlier in his life it might have been a child on a playground he passed by, (yellow-haired), as Bob had once been, playing hopscotch tentatively. Later a teenager—boy or girl, it happened with each—on the sidewalk laughing with a friend. Or, these days, a law student interning in his office might reveal a sudden aspect of expression that would cause Bob to think: This could have been my kid.”

Bob is haunted by the children he is unable to have, likely because it is his infertility that led Pam to divorce him. He lives in a world where he can pretend that things turned out the way that he would have liked them to. In this way, Bob avoids reality but also avoids moving on or growing and thriving.

“Bob had no idea what to do. Jim would know what to do. Jim had children, Bob did not.”

These short, declarative sentences express the certainty with which Bob regards himself as inferior to his older brother. Though he, too, is an attorney, Bob has been convinced that, compared to Jim, he is incompetent. Bob and Susan have grown to rely on Jim’s ability to fix any problem, no matter how large, and this belief in Jim’s competence and his own comparative incompetence has damaged Bob’s life.

“Helen closed her eyes behind her sunglasses and let her thoughts glide over to the Wally Packer days. What Helen had never told anyone was that those months had taught her what it must feel like to be the First Lady. One had to be ready for a camera click at any moment. One was building an image always. Helen understood this. She had been excellent at the job. […] And the excitement! Helen flexed her ankles. The late nights spent talking with Jim once the kids had gone to bed. Going over what had happened in the courtroom that day. He asked her opinion. She gave it. They were partners, they were in collusion. People said it must be a stress on a marriage, a trial like that, and Jim and Helen had to be careful not to burst into laughter, not to let it show: just the opposite, oh, it was just the opposite.”

Helen longs for a time in her past when her marriage was stronger: during the time when Jim’s career was at its peak. She ties her own happiness to his success and finds value in acting as a kind of pseudo-colleague in Jim’s professional life. Like Jim, she relishes the fame and positive attention that the case brought them.