'The Brothers McMullen' star Edward Burns shares stories of his novel and his Long Island childhood

The hero of Edward Burns' "The Marlboro Road Gang" (Seven Stories Press, $28) spends his 14th summer riding a Rampar bike through his working-class neighborhood, avoiding bullies, glimpsing girls and trying not to get fired from low-wage jobs.

The filmmaker-turned-author calls the novel a fictionalized version of his own childhood in the Valley Stream enclave of Gibson, the same setting for his first novel, 2024’s "A Kid from Marlboro Road," and for his acclaimed 1995 indie film, "The Brothers McMullen." The new book features many Long Island landmarks but should resonate with any Gen X-er who remembers the days of FM radio, muscle cars and a new national pastime called the video game.

Burns, 58, is still an active film director; his latest is a revived, pre-COVID project called "Beneath the Blue Suburban Skies." Juggling film festival appearances and a book tour, Burns took time to talk to Newsday about "The Marlboro Road Gang," his own latchkey childhood and how it differs from the way he raised his two children with supermodel Christy Turlington, whom he married in 2003.

"They grew up in such a different time," Burns said. "Every day, we had to make a determination of where to go, or where not to go, in order to avoid getting your [expletive] kicked that day."

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You use the term "latchkey kid," which I remember being sort of a negative term.

The vast majority of people our age who grew up like that, none of them talk about it as a negative. You know, we're probably wired a little differently than the generations that followed. If you were bullied at school or you got beat up in the schoolyard ... you certainly didn't talk to your friends about it. There wasn't a psychologist at school to talk to. You went upstairs into your bedroom and you put on some music and you tried to figure it out on your own.

Let's talk about some of the real-life landmarks in the book. I’ll throw them out and you tell me what they meant to you: The Sunrise Drive-In in Valley Stream.

That was there when I was a little guy. But I do remember my parents talking about it closing down. And then I absolutely remember when the Sunrise multiplex opened up. We were too young to really remember the drive-in, but the idea that the multiplex was ours, and brand new — I mean, that was a thrill.

The Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream.

I spent countless hours there in the arcade, playing Space Invaders, playing Asteroids. Even when we got a little older and in high school, some friends had jobs there. But primarily during those years, it was all about: We go to the multiplex and then, either before or after, go to the arcade to play video games.

The Seawane golf course in Hewlett Harbor.

I caddied there for one day and was fired because I was too scrawny to handle carrying two bags. We used to take our bikes into Hewlett Harbor and ride around to look at all of the big fancy mansions.

You golf now. Have you ever gone back there?

I was back there last year for a charity golf tournament. So it was pretty cool to see.

You have a whole chapter on Newsday. Tell me all about that.

I delivered Newsday for probably 2½ years. My whole route was on a street called Munro Boulevard. I started with like 36 houses, then ended up cutting it in half and giving the second half of my route to my brother. But all the descriptions of all the kids lining up behind the old A&P in Gibson behind the train station with our bikes, the brutality of delivering the Sunday paper in the winter — some of my worst childhood memories.

A lot of these stories involve kid-on-kid violence. Did you ever tell your childhood stories to your own kids? And how did they react?

They couldn't believe that version of a childhood existed, you know? Sometimes an older kid would spit on you, give you a wedgie, give you dead legs, might even kind of beat you up. It was the full spectrum of verbal and physical abuse. ... Where did you grow up again? I forget.

Southern California, in the suburbs. This is not an important point, but in your book somebody "hocks a lunger." On the West Coast that was a "loogie."

I’ve heard loogie now, because my wife is from the East Bay area in Northern California. She’s like, "What’s ‘hock a lunger?’ It’s ‘hock a loogie!’" It’s funny, I just had a buddy who read the book, who grew up outside of Chicago. But it’s like: If you’re our age, this was your life.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com