S13:Ep264 - A Boy From the North Country with Guest Sam Sussman + Dude Relationship Book Recs

The Perks Of Being A Book Lover Podcast

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25d ago 1:05:27

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You can find Sam Sussman at www.samevansussman.org or on IG at @sam_sussman.

Our guest is debut novelist Sam Sussman whose book Boy From the North Country comes out this week. Sam originally wrote a short memoir piece for Harper’s Magazine that referred to the possibility that he might be Bob Dylan’s son but really the essay focused on his relationship with his mom, who had had a love affair with the musician. Eventually, Sam decided to explode the moment, or the series of moments of his life and with his mother, to get a better handle on who he was and how much that was about who his mom was and how she had raised him, not whether his father was Dylan. The book is receiving high marks in early reviews, and Sam has been making the rounds in newspapers and magazines, including a profile by the New York Times. Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, The Library Journal, and the American Library Association have all given Boy From the North Country starred reviews.

And for our book rec section of the show, we’re thinking about books that center on male relationships. We realize that our guests and listeners are primarily female, but we thought we would equal the playing field a little by talking about books that deal with father-son relationships, male friendships or brotherly love. We have a multigenerational story about the men in a Mexican-American family, a group of friends in a small town of the American Midwest, a pair of quirky Irish friends, a memoir about two very different guys at Harvard, two Greek heroes and their deep relationship, and boys from different cultures who develop a bond in unlikely circumstances.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- Boy From the North Country by Sam Sussman

2- The Celebrants by Steven Rowley

3- The Guncle by Steven Rowley

4- In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

5- Anima Rising by Christopher Moore

6- The Last Mona Lisa by Jonathan Santlofer

7- The Lost Van Gogh by Jonathan Santlofer

8- A Five Star Read Recommended by Fellow Book Lover Megan Burnett - The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish

9- We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a Friendship by Will Schwalbe

10- The Sons of El Rey by Alex Espinoza

11- Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Bulter

12- A Forty Year Kiss by Nickolas Butler

13- The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

14- Circe by Madeline Miller

15- Nowhere Boy by Katherine Marsh

16- Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession

Media Mentioned -

1- The Silent Type: On Possibly Being Bob Dylan's Son- https://harpers.org/archive/2021/05/the-silent-type-on-possibly-being-bob-dylans-son/

2- School Cell Phone Ban Increases Library Visits - https://www.wave3.com/2025/09/02/school-cell-phone-ban-creates-surge-jcps-library-visits/

3- Reading for Pleasure Declines - https://abcnews.go.com/Health/americans-spend-time-reading-fun-time-screens-study/story?id=124807367

4- The Four Seasons (Netflix 2025)

5- The Four Seasons (1981)

6- How the Passionate Male Friendship Died --https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2025/05/men-friendship-history/682815/

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