October 6, 2026 at 7:00PM
Wellesley Books
82 Central St
Wellesley, MA 02482
Edward Burns, the writer, director, and star of The Brothers McMullen, joins us to celebrate the release of The Marlboro Road Gang, the followup to his 2024 debut novel, A Kid From Marlboro Road. "A beautiful tribute to the last days of childhood." –Harlan Coben, bestselling author of the Myron Bolitar series.
This is a ticketed event. Buy tickets online through the link above (fees apply) or by calling us at 781-431-1160 during store hours (no fees).
Notes about ticketing:
Admission to the event is $32 and includes a copy of the book.
Please note that the author will only sign copies of the book that were purchased from Wellesley Books.
Please also note that we cannot issue ticket refunds within 48 hours of the event.
Notes about parking:
Parking is available in the lot behind the store and on surrounding streets (check signage).
If you're planning to park in the lot behind the store, please take note of our new parking system. Parking is still free, however you must check in with the Vend Park system for validation. To save time, we recommend entering your vehicle info on the Vend Park site at home—with your cell phone and license plate info—before the event by clicking here.
ABOUT THE BOOK
A teenager’s idyllic summer of freedom is shaded by the growing weight of responsibility and a recognition of the fallibility of the adults around him.
In this his second Marlboro Road novel, Edward Burns continues the tale, loosely based on his own childhood. The Guardian called Burns’s first novel, A Kid from Marlboro Road, “keenly felt…vivid…a tender-hearted complement to the Irish-American stories that Burns captures in his films.” The boy that was twelve in the first novel is now fourteen, about to turn fifteen, when he will enter an all-boys Catholic High School. He spends a lot more time with his best friends, Mark, T-Mac, Zeppo, Louie and Cakes than he does with his given family.
But for all their newfound freedom, the kids find the larger world of Valley Stream and the neighboring towns a more dangerous place than they’re prepared for, where dads can hurt you when they reveal their own emotional scars and the local beach might be ruled by gangs of older kids you might have to defend yourself from. In this larger world our narrator starts to see even his own family as not so perfect.
The Marlboro Road Gang is a novel where darker currents start to invade the innocent pastorale of childhood, and where a boy might lose his bearings in the confusion.
"Edward Burns does the impossible here; he stops time, dropping us into the bittersweet days of mixed tapes and pool hooping, homemade marinara and his own growing awareness of what’s behind his mother’s sad eyes. These pages make you ache with each youthful humiliation and pine for the moments when Burns is understood and safe among his Long Island brothers in arms." –Kelly Corrigan, bestselling author of Tell Me More
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Woodside, Queens and raised on Long Island, Edward Burns has made fourteen feature films as a writer-director-actor and starred in many films, including Saving Private Ryan. Burns’ first film The Brothers McMullen, premiered in competition at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, winning the Grand Jury prize. The film also won "Best First Feature" at the 1996 Independent Spirit Awards. In 2015, he published Independent Ed, an inside look at his two decades as a pioneer in independent filmmaking. A Kid from Marlboro Road is his first novel, based on his childhood memories and the Irish American communities of the Bronx and Long Island. Burns lives in New York City with his wife and two children.