Quote: Edward Burns is known for his work as an actor and filmmaker, and now he’s debuting his novel-writing talent in A Kid from Marlboro Road.

Set in the 1970s, A Kid from Marlboro Road follows an Irish-American family living on Long Island — elements inspired by Burns’s own childhood. This coming-of-age tale explores the impacts of family history, the growing independence in early adolescence, death and grief, and dynamic family relationships.

Burns tells the story through the eyes of a 13-year-old boy, Kneeney, who opens the tale at the wake of his beloved grandfather, Pop. The wake’s overflowing crowd of characters include sandhogs in their muddy work boots, elderly Irish women in black dresses, and cops in uniform.

Kneeney, an aspiring writer, weaves together stories about these characters and his immediate family: his older brother Tommy has no patience for rules and domesticities, and his father is emotionally elsewhere. His mother struggles with her own sadness, which threatens to envelop both her and Kneeney. Throughout Burns’s novel, Kneeney learns more about his family history while also experiencing more losses and a deepening understanding of the world around him.

Burns brings to life stories of characters based on his own childhood, portrayals of Irish-Americans who have inspired some of his films, and now, on the page.

Born in Woodside, Queens and raised on Long Island, Edward Burns has made fourteen feature films as 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.

   

Quote: The Central Park jogger case was a criminal case based on the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, a 28-year-old, white woman who was jogging in the park, and attacks on eight other persons in the North Woods of Manhattan's Central Park on the night of April 19, 1989. Meili, an investment banker, was so injured that she was in a coma for 12 days. At the time of the first trial in 1990, The New York Times described the attack on her as "one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980s".

Attacks in Central Park that night were allegedly committed by around 30 teenagers, and police attempted to apprehend suspects. Meili was not found until 1:30 am, after which the police hunt intensified. Among other suspects, four African American teenagers and two Hispanic American teenagers were taken into custody. After lengthy interrogations, these six teenagers were indicted on May 10 on charges of assault, robbery, riot, rape, sexual abuse, and attempted murder relating to the attack on Meili and an unrelated man in the park. A seventh suspect was also indicted on these charges. (Two of the seven defendants made plea deals with the prosecution; they were dropped from the trial and later received lesser sentences.)

Prosecution of the five defendants was based primarily on confessions which they had made during police interrogations, which in some cases had proceeded for hours without parents or counsel present. They each later withdrew these confessions, pleaded not guilty, and refused plea deals. None of the suspects' DNA matched the DNA from two semen samples found on, and close to the victim, which both belonged to the same unidentified man, a fact stated by an FBI witness in the first of the two trials. There was no substantive physical evidence connecting the five teenagers to the rape scene, but each was convicted in 1990 of assault and other charges by juries in two separate trials. Subsequently known as the Central Park Five, they received sentences ranging from 5 to 15 years. Four of the defendants appealed their convictions, but these were affirmed by appellate courts. Four defendants served 6-7 years each; one, tried and sentenced as an adult, served 13 years in adult prison. Five other defendants had earlier pleaded guilty to charges related to other crimes against other victims that night, and received lesser sentences.

In 2001, Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer and serial rapist who was serving life in prison, confessed to officials that he had raped the female jogger. His DNA matched the two samples found on and near the rape victim, and there was other confirmatory evidence. He said he committed the rape alone. Reyes was not prosecuted for raping Meili, because the statute of limitations had passed. After an investigation by his office, in 2002 Robert Morgenthau, District Attorney for New York County, recommended that the convictions of the five men related both to charges for the assault and rape of Meili and other charges, be vacated. The court vacated their convictions in 2002, and the state withdrew all charges against the men.