Gen X gets its moment: Atlanta author Emily Giffin hosts actor and filmmaker Ed Burns at SCAD Show

Atlanta-based author Emily Giffin, known for New York Times bestsellers, including her 2004 debut, Something Borrowed and her latest release, 2024’s The Summer Pact, interviewed actor, filmmaker and author Edward Burns at SCAD show Wednesday night in Atlanta.

Burns, a familiar face who starred in the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan and reached a younger generation in 2008's 27 Dresses, is touring the country to promote his first novel, A Kid from Marlboro Road, an engrossing coming-of-age story set in a fictional Long Island town, where its empathetic protagonist brims with adolescent curiosity as he makes his way through multigenerational layers of Irishness, religion, drama and trauma.

Giffin, 52, and Burns, 56, are both known for writing characters from the Generation X perspective — so Gen X, in fact that the titular Kid from Marlboro Road doesn’t have a name.

Burns wrote, starred in and directed the classic The Brothers McMullen, also a Long Island tale that captured the latchkey generation’s foray into adult relationships and won Best Picture at Sundance in 1995. That one also had flecks of his own experiences. 

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Courtesy of Seven Stories

In an hourlong conversation inside the intimate theater, Giffin gently nudged Burns toward open-ended answers as the author talked about his upbringing — yes, on Long Island — and how the revelation of family histories influenced the character development of his latest work.

He joked that he had to convince his concerned parents that A Kid from Marlboro Road is an indeed a work of fiction and that his life differed from the one he wrote about. He said he drew upon elements of his childhood — from knickknacks and wallpaper in the family home to the names of kids in the neighborhood — but he insisted that the very real tween feelings of confusion and despair the “kid” feels when his mother is depressed were products of the writer's pen.

Giffin played the role of host, and did not speak much about her own work. Instead, with a dollop of Southern hospitality, she gave Burns the range to satisfy the audience with a personal glimpse into his writing process, his many projects in the works and his resilience to deal gracefully with canceled series and professional rejections even at his level in the industry.  

Gen X is also known as the sandwich generation, and Burns spoke about this regarding the importance of his relationship with his parents, as well as his own family with his wife, Christy Turlington Burns. The couple are technically empty nesters now that their two children are at college.

Everyone cheered when Burns brought up his two latest films, including Millers in Marriage, which played at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival, and a forthcoming sequel to Brothers McMullen. The enthusiasm was in part because the casts for the films includes favorite Gen Xers like Connie Britton, Julianna Margulies, Gretchen Mol, Campbell Scott, Benjamin Bratt and others.  

Afterward, Burns stayed behind to make sure every audience member who wanted their signed copy of the book personalized got their chance for a private conversation and photo, too. It’s what a good kid from Long Island would do.