Boy from the North Country

"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.

Author: Sam Sussman
Publisher: Penguin Press
Published: 09/16/2025
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.22h x 6.34w x 1.21d
ISBN: 9780593835050


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 07/01/2025 pg. 4
Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2025
Booklist 08/01/2025
Publishers Weekly 09/22/2025

About the Author
Sam Sussman grew up in the Hudson Valley. He graduated with a BA from Swarthmore College and an MPhil from the University of Oxford and has lived in Berlin and Jerusalem. His writing has been recognized by BAFTA and published in Harper's Magazine. Sam has taught writing seminars in India, Chile, and England and participated in the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. He lives in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan and his native Hudson Valley.