Underburn: A Novel

by Bill Gaythwaite

Overview

After devastating wildfires force Frank and his young boyfriend, Logan, from their rental home in the California hills, Frank’s mother, Iris, a former B-list actress, offers them temporary shelter as more family trouble beckons from across the country.

Iris Flynn is an acerbic, self-sufficient seventy-three-year-old widow with a minor Hollywood career in her past and some streamlined kitchen cabinets inspired by Marie Kondo. Her composed and simplified existence is disrupted when her son Frank lands on her doorstep after his rental home is destroyed in a wildfire, the latest in a string of personal setbacks for Frank. He arrives with Logan, his young and handsome boyfriend, a featured extra on a teen soap opera with a loyal Instagram following.

Soon, news from her estranged family in Maine forces everyone out of their comfort zone.  Iris convinces Frank and Logan to travel with her to the potato farm from where she made a quick getaway fifty years earlier, unleashing a funny and poignant family saga about secrets, forgiveness, and the fluctuating map of the human heart. An extraordinary story about family resilience, missed connections, and second chances that assures us it’s sometimes okay to create our own Hollywood endings.  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781953002440
Publisher:	Delphinium
Publication date:	11/19/2024
Pages:	274
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Bill Gaythwaite’s short fiction has appeared in Subtropics, Chicago Quarterly Review, Puerto Del Sol, december, Solstice, and many other publications. Bill’s work can also be found in the anthologies Mudville Diaries: A Book of Baseball Memories and Hashtag Queer: LGBTQ+ Creative Anthology, vols. 1 and 2. Bill has worked at Columbia Universitysince 2006, where he was on the staff of the Committee on Asia and the Middle East. He is currently the Assistant Director of Special Populations at Columbia Law School. Bill grew up in Boston and raised his son in New York City and its suburbs. An avid swimmer, movie aficionado and football fan, he lives in New Jersey with his partner, Tom. He has been writing stories since he was six years old. Underburn is Bill’s debut novel.

Editorial Reviews

09/04/2023

In Gaythwaite’s promising debut, middle-aged Frank Flynn moves with his younger boyfriend into his mother’s house after the couple’s rental home is destroyed in a fire. It’s not Frank’s first disaster; his life was already wrecked by an opioid addiction, though he’s sober now and works at a rehab. His actor mother, Iris, once had a career in Hollywood. She’s a formidable woman whose need to share her opinions “felt unstoppable, like a seizure.” She’s quick to educate Logan, Frank’s “unapologetically handsome” partner and a fledgling TV actor, about Bette Davis and Grace Kelly movies. After Iris receives news from her estranged sister, Celeste, that their mother has died in their Maine hometown, she returns after 40 years with Frank and Logan. The sisters, who “had never been close... as if they were cut and styled from different patterns,” have a prickly reunion—especially when they discuss the terms of their mother’s will. Stretches of the book meander, but Gaythwaite’s strength is in his subplots, whether describing Logan’s knotty history as an escort in Los Angeles or Frank’s battles with addiction, and the finale in Maine is worth sticking around for. The result is choppy but ultimately satisfying. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"A wonderfully engaging tale of both family and the underside of fame, Bill Gaythwaite’s debut novel Underburn mirrors the deceptive richness of the very generational ties it so charmingly explores: the long memories, conflicts big and small, surprisingly pivotal moments, and rediscovered bonds. One rarely encounters characters drawn with such candor, warmth, and humanity: you will gladly cheer and care for everyone as they seek to make peace with the past, while risking it all for a brand-new future."

Natalie Jenner

"A witty, heartfelt novel with endearing, imperfect characters who are impossible to resist, a deft examination of a family in flux."—Kristyn Kusek Lewis, Contributing Books Editor, Real Simple

"In Underburn, Bill Gaythwaite gives us a mindful and compelling account of a family navigating the distances between generations and coasts. An engaging and elegantly written novel."—David Leavitt, author of Shelter in Place

From the Publisher

"A poignant, funny, and timely family drama following the often-twisted paths we navigate toward understanding, reconciliation, and forgiveness."

Christopher Castellani

2023-08-26
California wildfires send a prodigal son and his young housemate home to mother.

At the center of Gaythwaite’s fine debut is Iris Flynn, a 73-year-old former beauty queen who aged out of a middling acting career to become a realtor years back. She's not close with her 42-year-old son, Frank, but on the other hand, she’s not close with anyone. She cut ties with her family in Maine when she moved to Hollywood, her husband has been dead for three years, and Iris is far too stiff and judgmental to have anything remotely like a friend. So when the home he shares with his 25-year-old boyfriend, Logan (“so startlingly handsome” that his appearance can cause “temporary amnesia”), burns to the ground, Frank knows the welcome they’ll find at his mother’s will be far from effusive. Though he also knows she’ll certainly take them in. Logan, who has a continuing role as a featured extra in a television series called Windsor Valley High, is as friendly and outgoing as Iris is cold and reserved, and after many uncomfortable conversations and icy rebuffs, they find their rhythm screening old movies in what Frank dubs the Iris Flynn Film Society and Lecture Series. This static situation has gone on for several weeks when Iris receives an email from her estranged sister in Maine that opens the door for a lively second act, bustling in new characters, locations, and backstories. Gaythwaite does a fine job with his central trio—keeping Iris just this side of hate-able, making Logan less stupid than stereotype would suggest, and, in particular, fleshing out Frank’s recovering-addict history and persona in a moving and believable way. The Hollywood ending he bestows upon them doesn’t hurt a bit.

A quirky family story told with wit and wisdom, with shades of Anne Tyler or Elizabeth Strout.

Kirkus Reviews