by Amy Jo Burns
A roofing family's bonds of loyalty are tested when they uncover a long-hidden secret at the heart of their blue-collar town—from Amy Jo Burns, author of the critically acclaimed novel Shiner
It's 1990 and seventeen-year-old Marley West is blazing into the river valley town of Mercury, Pennsylvania. A perpetual loner, she seeks a place at someone's table and a family of her own. The first thing she sees when she arrives in town is three men standing on a rooftop. Their silhouettes blot out the sun.
The Joseph brothers become Marley's whole world before she can blink. Soon, she is young wife to one, The One Who Got Away to another, and adopted mother to them all. As their own mother fades away and their roofing business crumbles under the weight of their unwieldy father's inflated ego, Marley steps in to shepherd these unruly men. Years later, an eerie discovery in the church attic causes old wounds to resurface and suddenly the family's survival hangs in the balance. With Marley as their light, the Joseph brothers must decide whether they can save the family they've always known—or whether together they can build something stronger in its place.
A roofing family's bonds of loyalty are tested when they uncover a long-hidden secret at the heart of their blue-collar town—from Amy Jo Burns, author of the critically acclaimed novel Shiner
It's 1990 and seventeen-year-old Marley West is blazing into the river valley town of Mercury, Pennsylvania. A perpetual loner, she seeks a place at someone's table and a family of her own. The first thing she sees when she arrives in town is three men standing on a rooftop. Their silhouettes blot out the sun.
The Joseph brothers become Marley's whole world before she can blink. Soon, she is young wife to one, The One Who Got Away to another, and adopted mother to them all. As their own mother fades away and their roofing business crumbles under the weight of their unwieldy father's inflated ego, Marley steps in to shepherd these unruly men. Years later, an eerie discovery in the church attic causes old wounds to resurface and suddenly the family's survival hangs in the balance. With Marley as their light, the Joseph brothers must decide whether they can save the family they've always known—or whether together they can build something stronger in its place.
Reviews-
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August 1, 2023
In Burns's Mercury, following the acclaimed Shiner, teenage Marley West meets the Joseph brothers when she blows into a Pennsylvania river valley town and soon marries one while tending to them all; the discovery of a dead body in the church's attic makes her wonder whether she should watch out for herself first (40,000-copy first printing). Prepub Alert.
Copyright 2023 Library Journal
Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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October 23, 2023
An aimless young woman joins a family of roofers in 1990 Pennsylvania in Burns’s appealing if florid sophomore novel (after Shiner). In the summer before Marley’s last year of high school, she catches the eyes of the handsome Joseph brothers, who invite her to dinner. She becomes a regular guest at their rambling Victorian home, where Elise Joseph serves a home-cooked meal nightly to her erratic husband, Mick, and three sons, Baylor, Waylon, and Baby Shay. Eventually, Marley gets pregnant and marries Waylon. In a bid to save enough money to get their own place, she tries to help Waylon bring in more jobs for the family’s roofing company, only to discover their finances are in shambles. Burns hits a few wrong notes, such as injecting implausible lyricism into Waylon’s perspective (he imagines his father might “burn his whole life to the ground just by chasing his own imagination”). Still, she keeps up the tension with multiple plot twists involving secrets about the town and the Josephs, and she portrays Marley’s working-class struggles as a young mother with precision. Once again, Burns delivers a satisfying portrait of life on the margins. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, Gernert Co. -
December 1, 2023
In the 1990s, a young woman yearns to become part of one big happy family, and thinks she might be. When teenager Marley West arrives in the Pennsylvania town of Mercury in 1990, she falls in love almost immediately. Not with Baylor Joseph, the swaggering athlete who swoops her up, but with Baylor's family--or at least what Marley thinks his family is. Baylor soon dumps her, and she falls into the arms of his younger brother, sweet, responsible Waylon. Soon Marley is pregnant and she and Waylon are married and living in a tiny apartment in the Josephs' sprawling Victorian house. The only child of a hard-working single mother, she's never experienced the clamor and warmth of a big family. She's charmed by the three sons (the youngest is tender-hearted Shay Baby), and impressed by patriarch Mick Joseph, a damaged Vietnam vet who runs the roofing company that supports the family and employs most of them. But Marley is most enthralled by Elise Joseph, wife and mother, who rules the household with never a hair out of place. Marley doesn't just want Elise to love her; she wants to be Elise. But Marley will discover deep fractures within the family and the extreme sacrifices Elise makes--not to mention a literal skeleton, not in the closet but in the attic of a local church. Marley forges her own identity, taking over the finances of the roofing company from the profligate Mick and raising her son, Theo, as her marriage wavers. Although by then it's the mid-1990s and rights for women and gay people are gaining cultural force, they don't seem to have any impact on small-town Pennsylvania, where Marley feels the same pressure of tradition Elise does, and another character suffers mightily. Though there's a large cast, Burns brings depth and insight to each member. Well-drawn, engaging characters and a vivid setting make this is a compelling study of family dynamics.COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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December 1, 2023
In the small Rust Belt town of Mercury, PA, the ability to build your own future is prized. Mick and Elise Joseph built a roofing business and raised three sons in Mercury, each son as dissimilar from the others as he could be. Despite their own hopes and dreams, Baylor, Waylon, and Shay faithfully followed the path their father set out for them, and Joseph and Sons Roofing became a fixture in Mercury and beyond. When a young woman called Marley moves to town, she catches the eye of all three Joseph sons in ways that change the course not only of their business but of the entire family. In the vein of Stacey Swann's Olympus, Texas (2021), Daniel H. Turtel's The Family Morfawitz (2023), and Brady Udall's The Lonely Polygamist (2020), Burns' (Shiner, 2020) sweeping family saga highlights the power of secrets kept and revealed. With clear, luminous prose, able to plumb the complementary and contrasting depths of masculine and feminine energy, emotion, and ambition, Mercury is a delight.COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Tracey Lange, New York Times bestselling author of We Are the Brennans
"It just doesn't get any better than this when it comes to a story about what it means to be family, whether it's the one you're born into or the one you create. From the moment I started Amy Jo Burns's new book I couldn't put it down--even though I didn't want it to end. You will fall in love with these beautifully drawn, unforgettable characters, who remind us of the strength of family bonds, and the importance of grace and forgiveness."
