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New York Times: 25 Books Coming in September. Oprah’s Best Books of the Fall. Books a Million First Works Pick of the Month. Zibby’s Book of the Month. Newsweek Fall Books Preview. Washington Post 6 Noteworthy Books for September. People, #4 Best Book of September. Kirkus Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2025. Jewish Book Council Bookshelf, Fall 2025. Publisher’s Lunch Buzz Books of the Fall. Brett Benner’s ‘Love’ List. AARP Big Fall 2025 Book Preview. Boston Globe notable books. Chicago Tribune Books for Fall 2025. The Atlantic, Books Out Next Week. LitHub Top 3 Books. Hey Alma, Jewish Books to Read this Fall.
PROFILES/interviews
New York Times, A Novelist Asks: Am I Bob Dylan's Son?
Sussman was sitting in an armchair one recent afternoon in the same Upper East Side apartment where his mother lived and where her affair with Dylan began. He will talk for three hours, in his comfy, under-decorated apartment stuffed with books (Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf), his own somewhat primitive paintings and a collection of vinyl records (Nina Simone, Leonard Cohen). He’s earnest in a way that seems lifted from an age before irony.
Sam Sussman Celebrates ‘High-Wire Literary Act,’ PEN America. “I thought that a great novel was centered on a powerful concept, on a grand idea,” Sussman explained. “What I had to understand was that a worthwhile novel is drawn from what we’ve lived through, from our emotion, from the people who made us who we are.”
The Independent: Sussman’s “prose in the novel has a journalistic precision, elevated by the grace of his language and the depth of his connection to the parent who raised him.”
Publisher’s Weekly, Writers to Watch: “Literature was a love language between my mother and me,” Sussman says, recounting how he grew up without TV in Goshen, N.Y., and read Harry Potter novels with his mother.
The Woodstock Overlook, Bob Dylan Might Be His Father. His Mother Is the Story. “Literature is the creation of meaning and significance out of the symbols and motifs of our lives,” Sussman told me.
A Mother’s Love and a Mysterious Father in ‘Boy From the North Country,’ PEN Ten Interview
GQ, Sam Sussman’s 10 Favorite Bob Dylan Songs
Yediot, cover of literary supplement
The Harvard Crimson, Author Sam Sussman Talks ‘Boy from the North Country’ and Why Art is Larger than Life
REVIEWS
Kirkus, starred review: “Come for the riveting father-son mystery, stay for the most beautiful and moving mother-son story in recent memory.”
Washington Post, 6 Noteworthy Books for September: “…he listens as she shares the story of her life, allowing him to appreciate the complexity of who she is and the choices she made. The truth underlying the characters’ stories brings power to this tender tribute to love between a mother and her son.”
The Telegraph:“Each emotional tremor is traced, each slow-dawning fear articulated…”
Oprah’s #6 Best Book of the Fall: “A rare combination of boldface intrigue and profound emotion.”
BookPage, starred review: ““A stunning piece of autofiction that is not to be missed… Lyrical, compelling… Sussman (writes) with exceptional maturity about his overwhelming love and grief, as well as his emotional inheritance…Boy From the North Country is an unforgettable tribute that would have made Fran Sussman shine with pride for the creative soul she raised.”
Booklist, starred review: “Sussman writes with lyrical passion…and tenderness about the angst of creativity, the burden of fame, and, most extraordinarily and cathartically, a son’s evolving understanding of his mother’s love and sacrifice.”
Publisher’s Weekly, starred review: "…in Sussman’s gorgeous autobiographical debut…is (his) intense portrait of a mother and son’s emotional bond. It’s a stunner.”
Library Journal: “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.”
The Daily Mail, “…vulnerable, intimate, and simultaneously heartwarming and heart-wrenching.”
The Observer, “Dylan obsessives who gravitate to the book in search of insight into his genius – and oddness – will not be disappointed…in the much broader canvas of Boy from the North Country, it is but one part of a more ambitious narrative that moves from a confused adolescent search for an impossibly out-of-reach father figure to a place of acceptance predicated on a mother’s guiding wisdom…”
AARP Big Fall 2025 Book Preview, “Evan may never know if he’s really the musician’s son, but it’s clear from this lovely novel that the question grows increasingly irrelevant as he grapples with the inevitable loss of his beloved mother.”
The Forward, “Sam Sussman fashions a mother-son love story with a side helping of Bob Dylan”
Jewish Book Council Review, “…like a breeze through tall grass — gentle, lovely. Step back, and the whole field shimmers…The book resists the pull of a paternity mystery. Instead, it centers on what is certain: a mother and child who know exactly who they are to each other, navigating the long season of her illness through nights of conversation, reminiscence, and caretaking.”
Hadassah Magazine, New Jewish Books of Holiness, Resilience, “There’s much talk of holiness, art and truth in this outstanding debut novel.”
Marie Claire, Pageturners of Autumn 2025, “The beating heart of this novel is not the potential for starry paternity, but the depth and beauty of the mother-son relationship at its centre. And it’s all the better for that.”
Jewish Insider, “Sussman’s story, and the growing positive acclaim for his debut novel, is a reminder that…the story of American Jewish literature has not yet reached its conclusion.”
Debutiful, Most Anticipated Debut Novels of 2025: “It will be easy to pitch this book as a ‘Bob Dylan novel’ – and it is that, but it’s so much more. It’s an intimate and stirring novel about a boy’s relationship with his parents, filled with heart.”
ESSAYS & EXCERPTS
Excerpt from Boy From the North Country, Tiferet Magazine (p. 95), “That night my mother told me a story…”
What Marcel Proust and Larry David taught me about my mother, Washington Post
Bob Dylan, my mother, and the unknown painter behind ‘Blood on the Tracks,’ The Forward
How Amos Oz Helped Me Write My Mother’s Tale of Love and Darkness, Paper Brigade Daily
Why Are There So Few Books About Mothers and Sons? Sam Sussman on Writing a Book About His Mother, LitHub
Reading My Audiobook Made Me Feel Closer to My Novel—and to My Mother, Writer’s Digest
RADIO/podcasts
Folio Literary Series, UJA/70 Faces Media with Menachem Kaiser
Totally Booked with Zibby Owens
Meet the Writers with Georgina Godwin
Behind the Stack with Brett Benner
A Mighty Blaze, Debut Spotlight with Ellen Comisar
The Perks of Being a Book Lover with Amy Smalley
Turn the Page with Jenn Jordan
Penguin Random House, ‘This is the Author’
NEWS
Grove Press UK to publish Bob Dylan inspired autofictional novel: “I picked up Boy from the North Country as a Bob Dylan obsessive, but I put it down a Sam Sussman superfan – I’ve never encountered such a tender, inspiring relationship between mother and son.”
New novel featuring Bob Dylan, Boy from the North Country, given September release date
